


Bright as Yellow, Warm as Yellow

by pillarboxred



Series: A Happier You Than Yesterday [3]
Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Minor Character Death, Road Trip, boys being confused about their feelings, rain and wind and water
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-08 14:21:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 63,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4308444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pillarboxred/pseuds/pillarboxred
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Thought maybe we could go after term ends.  That is, if you still want to.”</i>
</p><p>
  <i>“‘Course I want to,” Louis says, sliding the spreadsheet and the map together, placing them very carefully in his bag between his books so they don’t get wrinkled.  “Love a road trip.  Been wanting to go on one ever since I read Kerouac in Year Eleven, just, it somehow never ended up happening for me.”</i>
</p><p> <i>He doesn’t add in the other bit that there’s never really been anyone he’s wanted to go on a road trip <i>with</i>.</i></p><p> <i>At least there wasn’t until <i>now</i>.</i></p><p> <br/>Louis and Nick (and Liam and Harry) go on a road trip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from "Bright as Yellow" by The Innocence Mission

Nick shows up with a spreadsheet, an _actual_ spreadsheet, on Wednesday. 

Louis runs into him right outside Queen’s, where he’s just had his Early Modern English Lit module - they’ve been reading Wyatt and it’s _fascinating_ \- and he’s barely even got Nick’s name out when he’s being handed a piece of paper.

"I see you weren't lying about those Excel skills of yours Nicholas," Louis says, taking it from Nick’s outstretched hand and scanning over it.

Because it is a _nice_ spreadsheet, all colour-coded and sorted by region, with columns for dates and even travel times factored in.

"I also have a map," Nick says, digging in his bag and producing another piece of paper, a printout map of the country with arrows indicating a route between about fifteen reservoirs up and down and across, each one neatly labelled in its proper location.

"You really don't do things by halves, do you?" Louis asks, taking that as well and looking back and forth between it and Nick’s spreadsheet.

“It was that or revision,” he hears Nick say, and when Louis glances up from his papers, Nick’s got a hand in his hair and a tight grip on his bag, knuckles almost paper-white against the black of the strap. He’s also definitely biting his lip, and that’s every bit as unfair as it most likely was on Sunday.

“Think you made the right choice,” Louis says, going back and looking over the map again. “This is _sick_.”

“Thought maybe we could go after term ends. That is, if you still want to.”

“‘Course I want to,” Louis says, sliding the spreadsheet and the map together, placing them very carefully in his bag between his books so they don’t get wrinkled. “Love a road trip. Been wanting to go on one ever since I read Kerouac in Year Eleven, just, it somehow never ended up happening for me.”

He doesn’t add in the other bit that there’s never really been anyone he’s wanted to go on a road trip _with_.

At least there wasn’t until _now_.

“Think everyone wants to go on a road trip after reading Kerouac in Year Eleven,” Nick says, his face tilting into that wide smile Louis’s so fond of and his hand dropping from his hair to his side. “It’s, like, a requirement or summat. Read Kerouac then road trip.”

“And try to get high off banana peels,” Louis says, adjusting his bag on his shoulder and stepping a little closer to Nick. 

“Afraid I never tried that.”

“I didn’t either in the end,” Louis admits, grabbing onto Nick’s hand and leading him over to a bench. They’ve got a road trip to be discussing after all, logistics and such. “Me and my mate Stan were going to see if it worked, had the papers we’d got from peeling the foil off gum wrappers and everything, but then you had to dry the banana peels, and that was supposed to take a week, and neither of us had the patience to wait so we just tossed them out and saved the papers for something else.”

"Something...else," Nick says as they’re taking a seat. Luckily, Louis’s managed to snag a bench in the shade, and once they're good and proper seated, Louis goes ahead and burrows right into Nick’s space, sitting so close to him that there's not a whisper of air between them - he figures it’s absolutely allowed now that they're dating or whatever - and getting back out the map and spreadsheet, he places one atop each of his thighs.

"Something _illicit_ ," Louis says, giving Nick a gentle nudge in the ribs. "Anyway, term ends two weeks from today, right?"

"Think so, yeah."

"So we've got two weeks to plan the greatest road trip ever is how I see it."

"And you say _I_ don't do things by halves."

"Hush, you, and get me a biro."

Nick dutifully gets Louis his biro and a half-crumpled flyer to write on for good measure. Louis flips it back over and studies the front.

"Lemonfest?"

"Yeah it's coming up end of May. Had a whole stack of flyers at the station so I grabbed one."

"I've never heard of any of these people."

Nick laughs. "Me either, but it’s a festival, so I thought it might be fun. Always did like a festival."

"Like getting drunk in the mud with the other punters, then?"

"You don’t?"

"Actually no, not at first," Louis says, drawing circles on the back of the flyer to get the ink in the biro flowing. "Everyone's all handsy and loud, and I can't handle that until I've had at least a couple, but after I've had me drinks, it's great. Happy days!"

"So would you fancy going?" Nick asks. "To Lemonfest, if I promise to sneak you in something to drink? Keep the punters from getting their dirty hands on you?"

"What kind of person would I be if I refused an offer like that?" Louis responds, leaning even further into Nick’s side and looking up at him with a smile.

"Probably the kind of person who doesn't want me getting kicked out for sneaking in contraband and starting fights," Nick says, smiling back at him.

“I think that’d make me Liam actually,” Louis says, rubbing his cheek just a bit against Nick’s upper arm, pleased at the very _idea_ of Nick starting a fight on his behalf, ludicrous as it may sound. “So I’m afraid you’re just gonna have to risk it.”

Nick gives him the most least-convincing put-upon sigh in history. “Suppose I will.”

“Well that’s settled then,” Louis says, brightly, flipping the flyer back around and circling the date before turning it over once again. And he knows he should probably start in on sorting out logistics for their road trip - it _is_ why they’re sat on this bench after all - but it’s nice just _sitting_ here, leaned into Nick and his very comfortable arm, watching the world go by.

But eventually he does say, staring straight ahead and not even bothering to lift his hand to write, “You want to take the Renault or the MG?”

Nick starts and shifts a little - it’s nice knowing he’d been lulled too - and he says, “If the Renault’s still acting dodgy then probably ought to take the MG.”

Nick’s _remembered_. It’s only been a couple of days, sure, but it was such a small thing, not even worth remembering, and for some reason Nick _did_.

Louis snuggles ever so slightly harder into his arm. It’s barely possible at this point, but Louis manages.

“I can have Liam look at the Renault though,” he says. “ He knows a bit about cars, could probably fix something if it’s small.”

“Probably be more room in the Renault,” Nick says, sliding down in his seat so that Louis’s head ends up on Nick’s shoulder and Nick’s head is resting atop his.

Oh, that’s _nice_.

And now Louis suddenly remembers Saturday, when Nick had rested his chin atop Louis’s head, remembers the warmth of it, how _nice_ that had been too.

He’s not surprised at all when something almost electric curls through him, making him feel entirely too fluttery and damn near _hot_. He knows his cheeks are probably on fire, his _treacherous_ cheeks, but Nick can’t see from his vantage point, and Louis can actually breathe for a change, thank fuck, so he says, “That’s true. Although I suppose if I get Liam to fix it, then we ought to have him along too.”

“Him and Harry.”

“That’s right. We can lock them in the Renault and make them talk to each other for a change."

“They’re not talking?"

“Can’t when Liam’s taken to hiding in the gym.”

“Maybe he’s working on his fitness.”

Louis bites back a laugh. “You are not funny.”

“Yeah I am.”

Louis tilts his head back, dislodging Nick’s. He thinks he feels a slight shiver out of Nick as his hair’s brushing his neck, and isn't _that_ something?

Something he’s definitely going to be filing away for later.

"Maybe a bit," he says, then settles back into his previous position, pressing into Nick’s shoulder so he'll get the hint to put his back too. Which he does after only a couple of presses, and _good_. "Just a bit though."

"So long as you like it I guess," is Nick’s mumbled reply. He almost sounds like he’s going back to sleep already.

Louis thinks he'd quite fancy catching a kip with him.

"Are you done for the day?" he asks, about as soft as he can manage it and still be heard.

"Got the show tonight," Nick says, and that’s definitely a yawn he’s trying to stifle. "Usually have a nap first but I wanted to see you."

 _Wanted to see you_.

Nick put off _sleep_ to see him, get him his spreadsheet and his map.

There’s _absolutely_ something electric and fluttering and so very warm flitting around through Louis right now.

"We've still got two weeks," he says, putting a hand on Nick’s leg, feeling all manner of giddy when Nick covers it with his own. "We can plan the rest later. Or better yet we can make Liam do it."

Nick laughs. It’s really such a nice little sound. "Probably ought to be sure he's going first."

"Yeah alright, might better do," Louis says, and he ought to be letting Nick go, let him go get his beauty rest, but he just doesn't want to.

Which is probably why the next thing that pops out of his mouth is, "Want to come have your nap at mine? Promise the sheets aren’t dirty or anything, and I've got reading to do so I'll be quiet, won’t disturb you or nothing."

"Would beat going all the way back to mine," Nick says, lazily swiping his thumb across the back of Louis’s hand. "If you’re sure it's alright."

"If it wasn’t alright I wouldn’t have offered, Nicholas," Louis says, standing up and tugging at Nick’s hand, so pleased that Nick’s coming back with him and that he gets to keep him just a bit longer. 

They’re halfway to the bus stop when Nick comes to an abrupt halt, causing Louis to stumble a bit at the sudden pull on his hand.

“Gonna need my contacts case,” Nick says, looking troubled for some reason Louis can’t suss out, and it’s so close to a frown that Louis feels almost uneasy. 

Feels something _hollow_ , something almost a lot like _disappointment._

Because if it were Louis, he’s pretty sure _he_ wouldn’t go all the way to his, grab something small like a contact lens case, and then head back out just to take a _nap_ at someone else’s.

“Actually nevermind,” Nick says after a minute or so, during which Louis is positive every little thought’s been played out on his face. “I’ll just buy a new one.”

“You’ll just...buy a new one,” Louis repeats, not convinced he’s heard correctly.

“Yeah it’ll be fine,” Nick says, waving it off with a smile, which, lucky posh bastard.

“You can’t just go around buying new things when you’ve got something perfectly good at home,” and holy fuck, when did he turn into his mum?

“Was thinking about getting chips and gravy whilst I’m out. Get you some."

Well that changes things.

“Extra gravy.”

“Of course. Never enough gravy down here.”

"That’s for damn sure."

Louis loves his gravy.

And he might even love Nick a little bit, a tiny, tiny bit, just because he’s _getting_ him gravy, and he remembers things, and he’s got nice lips, and Louis likes his smile.

But Louis sure as _hell_ isn’t saying that yet, and if he’s honest, it's rather terrifying that he’s even thinking that when they haven't even been on a second date.

Are they even going on a second date?

Is that what this is?

Is that what their road trip is?

Sometimes Louis really wishes his brain had come with an off switch.

But, he hasn't got one, of course, although he's soon going to have chips and gravy, and Louis will focus onhis chips and gravy and the feel of Nick’s hand in his own and how very well Nick wears a navy blue coat.

Yes, Louis will absolutely focus on that.

~*~

He’s tilted back in his chair, feet up on his desk and Behn’s _The Forc’d Marriage_ open but largely ignored in his lap, when his door creaks open and Harry very slowly enters the room, making a huge show of tiptoeing over to Louis’s desk and dropping down to the floor beside it.

“Had to see it for myself,” he whispers, nodding at Nick’s sleeping form buried in Louis’s duvet. Nick had basically fallen asleep the minute his head had hit Louis’s pillow, which was about an hour ago, and he’s still in just about the same position, wrapped up so that only a tuft of hair’s visible.

His hair and his very nice eyebrows.

Louis really is _ridiculously_ fond of those very nice eyebrows.

He thinks he ought to do something about that, because seriously? _Eyebrows_?

Louis is so gone.

And Harry’s still looking up at him, waiting for a response.

“He was knackered,” Louis says with a shrug, closing his book and attempting to put it on his desk before giving up because he can’t reach and dropping it on the floor on his other side instead. “Said he could kip here. That’s all.”

“Is it?” Harry asks, eyebrows raised, which, _fuck off_.

“ _Yes_ ,” Louis says, more like hisses, picking his book back up and dropping it in Harry’s lap. “Now hush unless you’ve got something important to say.”

“I do,” Harry says, but he’s a lot quieter. “Liam wants me to tell you that you just need new belts. On the Renault.”

“Can he get them in two weeks?”

Harry nods. 

“Don’t suppose you two fancy going on a road trip with me and Nicholas then?”

“When?”

“End of term. Might be for a week or two.”

“Sure you don’t want it to be just the two of you?”

And the thing is, Louis _does_ kind of want it to be just the two of them. It’d been the original idea, after all.

“Would actually,” he admits. “But Liam’s helping with the car and we didn’t want to leave you out if we took him so…”

Harry snorts out a laugh. “How... _considerate_.”

“Fuck off.”

Harry laughs even harder.

"I'll think about it," he says. 

"Well go think about it outside with Liam. In fact, go ask Liam how he feels about it. Right now."

Harry rolls his eyes, but he unfolds himself and stands up, squeezes Louis’s shoulder and leaves just about as quietly as he’d come in.

Louis picks his book back up, aiming to read at least a few lines, when he hears, very slowly and almost slurred:

"We don't have to take them."

Louis almost falls off his chair he whirls around so fast.

Nick hasn’t moved, still wrapped up like a burrito, but his eyes are blinking open and his mouth's visible. 

His really very nice mouth.

His really very nice mouth that Louis thinks he ought to be kissing. Thinks he _should_ be kissing, since they're dating or whatever, but all _he's_ got going on is this...warmth curling all about, making him feel like he’s sunburnt.

That and this absolutely _dopey_ smile.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," he says, scooting his chair over closer to the bed.

"Was sleeping," Nick mumbles, sitting up and putting a hand in his hair. He's all squinty and sleep-ruffled, and it is horribly _unfair_. 

"But you had another fifteen minutes," Louis says, picking up his mobile and double-checking the time. It’s actually closer to twenty minutes truth be told.

Nick yawns and waves his other hand. "S'fine. Gives me more time to talk to you," he says, throwing the duvet back and sliding over to the edge of the bed. It puts him so close to Louis that their knees tangle, but Louis likes it so he doesn't scoot back and away. Nick reaches out and takes Louis’s hands, adding, "Meant it just now. We don't have to take Liam and Harry if you don't want to."

"Don't know what I want actually," Louis says, ducking his head and turning his attention to their hands. The fact is, he really doesn't. Mostly he _does_ want Nick and the road to himself, but there’s this other part of him that thinks it'd be so much more fun with four people packed into the Renault for a week or two. "What do you want to do?"

Louis looks up in time to catch Nick’s shrug as he looks up from where he’d been studying their hands as well.

"I don't know either," he says with a bit of a laugh.

It makes Louis smile in response.

"We are so terrible," he says, leaning forward a little.

"No, we're amazing. You said." Nick's leaning forward a little too.

Louis laughs and drops his gaze to Nick’s mouth. 

Nick’s still really very nice mouth.

"We are," Louis agrees, leaning in even more and stopping only when their noses are about to brush. "Think we ought to just drag Liam and Harry into it. Make them do the bulk of the planning. Sure Liam'd be up for it."

"Think that’s a great idea," Nick says, nodding his head ever so slightly and then closing the distance between them. 

Great idea, yes.

Not as great as kissing Nick, because nothing's going to come close to the feel of Nick’s lips on his own, how with each press and each glide of Nick’s tongue against his Louis feels something shivery and electric almost _everywhere_.

It gets even _better_ when Nick’s hands leave his and travel up his arms to his shoulders to pull him in _closer_.

And Louis is just about to say _fuck it, absolutely fuck it,_ and climb into Nick’s lap when the door bursts open, startling them apart.

Louis’s so rattled he can’t even think straight.

Definitely can't _breathe_.

He thinks he hears Harry say, "We're going," but it’s hard to tell over the pounding of his heart in his ears.

"I told him to knock," Liam says, looking all manner of apologetic, and that’s somehow enough to bring Louis back down.

"Wanker," he says, reaching behind Nick to grab a pillow and lobbing it in Harry’s direction. Harry cackles and catches it easily, tucking it under his arm. "Just for that you're doing the planning."

If Harry doesn’t know he and Liam have already been volunteered for that, then, well, Louis isn’t going to be enlightening him.

"We've got a list though so you have to plan around that," Nick says as he’s putting an arm around Louis’s back, which, _thank you_.

"I think we can do that," Liam says, and it's almost cheery. He certainly _looks_ cheerier than he's done for the past couple of days, and although _he_ misses it, Louis notices Harry shoot him a soft little smile.

 _Yes_.

This is going to be an _amazing_ trip.


	2. Chapter 2

"Amazing road trips don't begin at 6 _am_ Harold," Louis says, pulling his duvet back over his head before yanking it down again and adding, "What the fuck are you even doing up this early? Classes are _done_ , so why aren't you sleeping in like _normal_ people?"

"I'm not normal people," Harry says, but he stops pulling on Louis’s arm and instead crawls into bed with him.

"You are definitely not that," Louis agrees, shuffling over to make room. "You haven’t got your boots on, have you?"

There’s a rustling that can only be Harry shaking his head. "Not...quite. Put them on before we go. I think...Liam...wants to leave at 7."

"Go convince him we need to leave at 9 instead."

"Can't. He’s already got the kettle on."

"Then go have a cuppa with him. Tell him that story you like to tell about being mistaken for Mick Jagger."

"He knows that one."

"The one about the bread van then."

"He was there."

"Well go thank him again for reasoning with the _police_ ," Louis says, rolling over so he's not facing Harry.

He isn’t at all prepared for Harry to plaster himself against his back.

"It’s just Liam, Harold," he says, although he gives Harry’s hand a squeeze where it’s resting against his stomach. "Stop being weird and let me sleep."

" _It’s_ weird."

"It is a bit," Louis says, patting Harry’s hand. "But you'll be alright "

"Think so?"

"Wouldn’t have said it if I didn't."

"Alright," Harry says after a minute or two. He pulls away like he’s going to leave, but Louis grabs onto his arm.

"I've decided you're staying," he says. "Keep me warm til Nick gets here."

Harry laughs and settles in. "Think Liam’s already phoned him. Should be here soon."

Louis smiles into his pillow, feeling all manner of warm, and he _knows_ it’s nothing to do with Harry the Human Furnace. 

"Surprised he even answered at this hour."

"Probably did on account of you _."_

And now Louis is _blushing_ into his pillow, grin threatening to split his face.

"He really fancies you, you know."

Louis does know is the thing. Even if he’s still got some trouble believing it all the time.

Even if there’s this nasty little part of him that’s sure he’s gonna fuck it up somehow.

Or that Nick'll find out he's actually quite ordinary in the end, nothing special, and he’ll _leave_.

"Tell you that did he?"

Harry nods against his back. 

"I wasn't supposed to tell you though."

Louis turns his head and meets Harry's eyes.

"Why did you then?"

"Thought you needed to know."

"Oh."

Louis turns back around and buries his face in his pillow again.

"Thanks Haz."

It _is_ goodto know. To be sure. If only for a time.

Harry squeezes his waist.

~*~

He wakes up some time later, Harry still plastered to his back and his hair stuck to his forehead with sweat.

"Gross," he says, moving Harry’s arm off of him.

"Not gross."

Louis’s eyes pop open.

"Hi."

Hovering right by the side of the bed is Nick.

Nick and his _ridiculously_ nice face, with that _ridiculously_ wide smile.

His hair’s ridiculously nice too.

Stupid hair.

"Hi," Louis says back, and he shuts his eyes when Nick reaches out a hand and moves his sweaty hair off his forehead.

Such a simple thing, but it feels so _good_.

"Have to admit I'm a bit jealous."

Louis opens his eyes again, gives Nick his best confused look. Nick nods at Harry, still motionless behind him, and Louis laughs.

"Room for you too."

Nick just smiles some more and bites his lip.

 _Unfair_.

"I'll remember that. I'm more jealous you're still in bed, and I've been up since 5."

"Thought Liam didn't ring you til 6ish."

Nick nods. "He did. Was already up."

"Excited were you?"

Nick nods again, turning a bit pink. "Isn't every day I get to go on a road trip with a fit lad."

Louis can't help his smile. "You're such a sap."

"But I'm your sap."

And Louis is nodding, about to lean forward and plant one on Nick’s ridiculous mouth when suddenly his duvet lands on his head and he hears Harry say, "Just be in the shower then."

Nick laughs and calls out a "Hello Harry!" and by the time he's helped untangle Louis from the duvet Harry’s nowhere in sight.

But because Harry is Harry, he pops back in after a few seconds, bowing low and saying "Hello Nick" with a smirky kind of grin on his face, and then he's right back out the door, pulling it closed behind him.

Louis buries his face in Nick’s shoulder. 

It’s a nice shoulder, very comfortable.

 _Nick_ is very comfortable.

"Gonna go back to sleep," he slurs into Nick’s shirt. "Lemme know when Harry’s done."

Nick slings an arm around Louis’s shoulders and puts a hand in Louis’s hair, scratching at his scalp.

If Louis could purr, he thinks he really would right now.

"Alright," Nick says, still scratching.

Louis thinks he's been petted for about an entire minute - an entire _lovely_ minute - when he realises something and pulls away.

"Just remembered I'm disgusting," he says to Nick’s confused look.

Nick’s face clears and he shrugs. "Not disgusting," he says, hauling Louis back in. "Not that I'm into sweat or anything, because that is kinda gross, but I don’t think you are."

"You must be really gone for me Nicholas."

Nick freezes. 

_Shit_.

"I actually said that out loud just now didn't I?"

Thankfully Nick simply laughs, squeezing Louis’s arm and sitting back to study Louis’s face. He’s biting his lip again whilst he’s doing it, and Louis doesn’t think it's his imagination that Nick’s cheeks are tinged an even darker pink.

"You did," Nick says, nodding his head. "And I, um, I might be. A little."

"Just a little?"

Louis’s heart is threatening to escape out of his mouth.

Nick looks at him for what seems like a very long time before he says, "Maybe more than a little."

_Thank fuck._

Louis swallows, hard, to get his heart back where it belongs.

"As long as it's more than a little," he says, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed, pulling Nick up with him. He ends up face-planting into Nick’s chest, but it’s a nice chest - much like the rest of Nick is nice - and he lingers just enough to catch the scent of Nick’s washing powder, all sunshine and lemon.

 _Stupid silly gone boy_ , he thinks, smoothing out the creases in Nick’s t-shirt, decidedly avoiding Nick's face, and, wait a minute...

"What’re you wearing that for?" he asks, pulling Nick’s hoodie open and gawking at, well, Dr Dre staring back at him. He’s seen most of Nick’s ridiculous shirts before but this is quite a new one.

"It’s Dre. He’s a legend," Nick says, putting his hands over Louis’s where he’s still gripping onto Nick’s zip.

"He is, but I didn't think you'd be wearing a shirt like that unless it's ironic. Is it ironic?"

" _No_ ," Nick says, looking mildly offended before his face clears and settles into something softer. "And besides, not like that hipster music you say I listen to's got a lot of merch. I'd be going naked relying on them for a shirt."

Louis might turn a bit red - okay a lot red - at the idea of Nick naked. At the idea of Nick naked with _him_.

"Right," he says, clearing his throat and willing his skin, heart, blood, _whatever_ to _calm down_. "I'm gonna go see if Harold's done washing his hair. Ought to be leaving soon, yeah?"

"Yeah," Nick says, looking a bit uncertain but letting Louis go. "Sure Liam’s going mental out there, waiting on everyone. Having kittens like you say."

Louis can only imagine.

"Might need to go calm him down then."

"Me?"

"Yeah you," Louis says, giving Nick a gentle push toward the bedroom door. "Go talk at him a bit. He'll like that."

Louis doesn’t add in the bit where _he'd_ like that. That it'd work perfectly well on him.

"Or go see how awkward him and Harry are with each other whilst I’m showering and report back. Might find something useful."

"Plotting are we?" Nick asks, tossing a smile over his shoulder. 

Louis smiles right back at him. "Always."

~*~

When Louis emerges from the bathroom showered, dried, and dressed sometime later, he finds Nick, Liam, and Harry sat at the table, Harry fiddling with his mobile and sneaking glances at Liam, who's earnestly listening to some story Nick’s telling about getting pulled over by a cop during his first year.

"I don't even know _how_ I got on the bicycle or why I'd been given the fishing pole, but there I was at 2am, piss-ass-drunk, explaining to the nice officer that no I wasn't going to try fishing in the Exe at that hour, that I was _returning_ a pole I'd found and could he take it maybe?"

"Did he take it?" Liam asks, eyes wide. Harry's just smirking down at his mobile.

"Don't think he really wanted to, but he did," Nick says, and from his vantage point Louis can see him trail a long finger down the edge of the table.

"How'd you get back to your room?" Liam asks.

"He ended up losing the bicycle so he walked," Louis says, coming in and draping himself across Liam’s shoulders. He'd like them to be Nick’s shoulders, actually, but he's not too sure he could reach as well as he’d like. At least not without going up on his toes and being completely obvious about it.

Maybe he could practise. There’s an idea.

"How'd you know that?" Nick asks, absolutely gobsmacked, and Louis had no idea it was _that_ big a deal.

"Harry told me," he says, glancing over at him. 

"Didn’t know you were paying attention," Harry says, not even looking up from his mobile.

"I pay attention," Louis says, petulantly, grabbing Liam’s snapback off his head and throwing it in Harry’s direction. Liam protests, and Harry just laughs and catches it, sitting it gently down by his mobile.

"Would seem that you do," he says. "Occasionally."

"More than occasionally, Harold."

"Just when it's Nick then."

Louis very abruptly feels all of the blood draining from his face.

And it isn’t that it’s not true, because it is apparently, but Nick is sitting _right fucking there_ , and when Louis can breathe again, Harry is a dead person. 

An absolutely dead person. 

It gets _insanely_ quiet for a second or two, and then Nick’s snorting out a laugh and saying, "Well _I_ feel special. Not everyone can remember a Harry story they’re so long and rambly."

"Heyyyy," Harry says, and Louis is entirely too busy burying himself in Nick’s side to see the expression on his face. He does see that Liam’s patting his arm, though, so he figures Harry'll be alright.

"First stop's a little over an hour away," he says, feeling all sorts of pleased with Nick’s arm around his waist. "Might could tell us one of those stories. Help pass the time. Just one though."

Harry gives him an obscene gesture and a death glare, but Liam lights up like a ruddy Christmas tree. 

"I think that's a great idea," he says, and Louis can tell he really _is_ looking forward to hearing Harry ramble about something or other.

He would.

"He is driving first," Louis says, nudging Liam with his foot. "Think you ought to sit up there with him so you'll hear it better."

"And you can navigate," Nick puts in.

"Thought you two had the list," Liam says.

Louis nods. "We do, but nothing's saying you can't lead us around. You checked the AA site, right?"

"It _and_ the RAC site. Got us printouts and everything just in case the GPS goes out."

"See? You’re more prepared than the rest of us combined. You'll do fine."

“He’ll be _excellent_ ,” Nick adds, and if Louis weren’t so besotted already, he’d be a little bit extra just for the happy look on Liam’s face.

“That settles it then,” Louis says, and just to keep that happy look on Liam’s face, he barrels back into him, shouting “ROAD TRIP!” at the top of his lungs and half-dragging him outside.

~*~

“I’m not turning around for your sunglasses Louis.”

“But it’s bright out and I can’t _see_.”

“I’m already on the M5, and I’m not going back.”

“Not my fault you took the long way around _Harold_.” 

“But it _is_ your fault you left your sunglasses _Lewis_.”

“ _I_ like how we’ve barely left and we’re already arguing,” Nick says, handing Louis _his_ sunglasses.

“Isn’t arguing,” Louis says, taking them and placing them on his head. They’re these thick plastic tortoiseshell frames that he’s sure look a lot better on Nick than they do on him. “Harold’s in a strop. Has been all morning.”

“I _haven’t_ ,” Harry says, turning back to glare at Louis before turning his attention back to the road. “I’m just...thinking, and you’re disrupting it.”

“You could think out loud,” Louis says. “We’ve got, what, forty-five minutes or so left, right? Might could solve your problem by the time we reach Exmoor, have a nice rest of the trip.”

“Isn’t that kind of problem Lou,” Harry says, and alright, Louis knows when to shut up.

“Will it bother your thinking if we listen to Yellowcard?”

Louis actually doesn’t know when to shut up.

“Yellowcard?” Nick’s pulling a face.

“I _like_ Yellowcard,” Louis says, pulling a face right back at him.

“They had, like, _one_ good record, and it’s ancient.”

“2003 isn’t ancient Nicholas.”

“It’s really not,” Harry puts in.

“You only say that because your favourite song is ‘Honky Tonk Women.’”

“Why, Nick,” Harry says, syrupy sweet, “you _remembered_.”

“Only because you got us lost when you heard it on the radio one night and we ended up all the way down in St Thomas because you wouldn’t stop talking about it.”

“When’d you two go to St Thomas?” Louis asks, not at _all_ feeling jealous that Nick and Harry have these stories, but he and Nicholas _don’t_.

“Ages ago,” Nick says, waving a hand. Louis catches it and holds it in his own.

“It was that night Nick was having a pout because you said you didn’t like house music.”

Well, _that’s_ something Louis didn’t know. Something he very much likes knowing _now_.

He squeezes Nick’s hand.

“I _hate_ house music. S’not even music. Just sound that decided to be loud and annoying.”

“I like house music,” Liam says, and Louis had forgotten he was even there he’d got so quiet.

“You don’t count,” Louis says. “You like everything.”

“I don’t like spoons.” 

“You’re _afraid_ of spoons. That’s not the same thing.”

“It’s not?”

Louis is about to reply that _of course it’s not_ , when Harry cuts in with, “I think you can be afraid of spoons and not like them at the same time. Not the same thing, but, like, adjacent...things.”

“Adjacent things,” Liam says thoughtfully.

“Exactly,” Harry says, giving him a smile.

Louis can’t see Liam’s face, but he’s sure it’s got a pleased sort of look on it.

“I think we ought to ditch them when we get to the lake,” he whispers to Nick, leaning over as far as the seatbelt will allow.

“Ditch them?” Nick whispers back.

“We’re not _leaving_ them behind Nicholas, just, I think they could do with some time alone, yeah?”

Nick nods. “Yeah, alright.”

 _And then we’d get some time alone too_ , Louis thinks. It’s a thought that’s somehow both exhilarating and terrifying all at once, much like _everything_ about... _this_ is.

It’s ridiculous. _Louis_ is ridiculous.

It’s just that, he’s _horrible_ at this sort of thing, always cares too much and too fast and too hard, and for once, for fucking _once_ , he’d like to know what the _fuck_ he’s doing when it’s something so important. He’d like to get it _right._

Get it right so he doesn’t end up _alone_.

And he’d like his fucking _brain_ to _shut the fuck off_ right _now_ , please and thank you.

He thinks his palms are sweating, and he’s not entirely sure he’s breathing. His head feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton wool, and he’s so cold he actually _shivers_.

Which is why he doesn’t realise he’s being asked a question until there’s a tug on his hand.

“You alright?” Nick’s asking, very lowly thank _god_ , and he’s so concerned-looking that Louis thinks he could either cry or punch something. Not that he’s got the strength to punch something he’s feeling so wobbly, but he’s got the desire at least. “Looked like you went somewhere for a moment there.”

 _I did_ , Louis thinks, almost dumbstruck at how fast reality’s rushing back. _I really did._

He nods.

“I don’t mind listening to Yellowcard,” Nick says. “If you wanted.”

Harry turns around at that, and Liam’s peeking over the side of his seat.

 _Great_.

Now _they’ve_ noticed.

“You pick,” he says eventually, a little raspier than he’d like. “No house music.”

Nick nods and waves Liam and Harry off, and, once they’ve turned back around, he goes digging in his pockets, eventually coming up with his mobile and a set of tangled earbuds. He gets them undone and fiddles with it a bit, selecting a song probably, before handing it over.

“The Innocence Mission,” he says, still so quiet as Louis’s putting the earbuds in. “Think you’ll like it.”

And Louis _does_ like it. It’s not one he’s heard before even if it _is_ so very familiar, but it’s so _calm_ and soft and _perfect_ and wonderful that he closes his eyes to hear it better. 

Closes his eyes so he doesn’t actually _start_ crying like an idiot.

“Thank you,” he whispers, slouching down in his seat and letting Nick take his hand again. He’s not sure if Nick’s heard, although he _is_ sure that his hand’s still damp and disgusting, but Nick doesn’t seem to mind, given the iron grip he’s got on it.

The Innocence Mission fades into The Airborne Toxic Event, and while “Sometime Around Midnight” is _nowhere_ near as comforting as “Bright As Yellow” was, Louis listens to that too. 

And to the surprise Robbie Williams track that follows it.

“Didn’t know you liked Robbie,” Louis says once it’s ended, removing one of the earbuds and looking over at Nick.

Nick smiles at that, and Louis doesn’t think it’s his imagination that he looks a little relieved. “Robbie’s legendary,” he says. “Think we ought to have him on the currency along with the Queen.”

“Think I agree with you there, mate,” Louis says, passing Nick the earbud in his hand and switching the other one from his left ear to his right. He waits until Nick’s situated and then hits play again, fully committed to being an obvious sneak and seeing what all Nick’s got on his phone.

“Oh I _love_ this one!” he says, a bit too loudly as “Little Talks” comes on. He doesn’t add that one of the _reasons_ he loves it is that he relates a little too well to it, just turns it up as much as he can without risking his or Nick’s hearing.

“It’s a good record,” Nick says, leaning in and pressing a quick kiss to Louis’s forehead before sitting back and holding his hand for the rest of the drive to Exmoor. 

~*~

“That was nothing but _noise_ Nicholas,” Louis says, handing Nick back his mobile once they’ve arrived.

For once, Nick doesn’t argue, just nods a little sheepishly.

“I only like them because of the name,” he admits. “Thought it’d be a cool band to say you’re into.”

Louis has to agree. “It _is_ a cool name. Blues Explosion.”

“Very explode-y.”

“Very _loud_.”

“They are that.”

“Think Harold would like it though. ‘history of lies’ seems like his kind of record.”

“Played it for him once actually, just to see his reaction,” Nick says. “He loved it.”

Louis laughs. “He would.”

“Who would?” Harry asks, looking back over his shoulder as they’re all heading toward a fairly standard-looking park building.

Louis is about to answer _you would_ , but then he decides that “LIES!” shouted at the top of his lungs is an even _better_ answer, so that’s the one he goes with. It gets him a _look_ from an elderly man in a mackintosh and a newsboy cap, but it also gets him a Nicholas giggling into his side, so Louis finds he regrets nothing.

Harry gives him a _look_ as well, some sort of cross between exasperated and fond, and starts walking a little faster with Liam close on his heels.

“You can’t escape me Harold,” Louis calls out after him. “I’ve got the keys!”

Nick laughs some more and gently claps a hand over Louis’s mouth. 

Louis thinks he likes it a lot more than he should.

“Come along darling,” Nick says, and that’s even more _thrilling_. “Before we get tossed out and don’t get to see the lake.”

Louis hums and presses a kiss into Nick’s palm just because he thinks he’d like to.

Judging by the delighted expression on his face and the pink tingeing his cheeks when he moves his hand away, Louis thinks Nick liked it too.

"D'you think it's fair to see the lake when we haven't brought Mr Bento along?" Louis asks when he remembers how talking works. "We _were_ supposed to be bringing him on our reservoir trip."

"We can take pictures for him," Nick says, accepting Louis’s hand and following him inside. "Show him when we get back so he's not too cross with us for leaving him behind."

It’s both the best and silliest idea Louis’s ever heard.

He _loves_ it.

"Might need to start with a selfie or something, yeah? So he knows it’s us and not some random thing from Google."

"Alright," Nick says, pulling out his mobile and ushering Louis back outside. "Think we should take one with the sign."

And that’s what they do. Go pose by a sign, pointing at it and making all manner of ridiculous faces to show, ostensibly, Harry’s lunch jar back home.

"What _are_ you two doing?"

Not that they're telling Liam that. Or Harry. 

Definitely not Harry.

Speaking of, "Where's Harold?"

"Inside," Liam says. "Had to pay for parking and get us a map. Ought to be out shortly."

"What’s in there anyway?" Louis asks, indicating the building he and Nick never quite got into.

"Visitor Centre," Liam says, looking back at it. "They've got a tea room too."

"Tea?" Louis asks hopefully. He's _parched._

Liam nods. "Thinking about having a cream tea myself."

"Cream tea sounds _excellent_ right about now," Louis says, already stepping around Liam and pulling Nick along with him.

"I want to get Harry an ice cream."

Louis stops and turns around.

"They've got this ice cream, yeah?" Liam says, still stood where Louis had left him, only turned about. "It’s called 'Styles Farm' and I thought he’d like it."

"'Styles Farm,'" Louis says. "Are you serious?"

"Totally serious," Liam says, like he ever wouldn’t be.

"Well I think Harry would _love_ that," Louis says, heading back toward Liam and clapping his shoulder with his free hand, nudging him forward. "Especially if you got it for him."

"Really?"

"Really."

"He'll like it even more if it says 'Styles Farm' on the side of the cup," Nick adds. "So he can put it on Instagram."

"Think it says 'Styles Farm' on the cup?" Liam asks as they’re passing through the doors.

"Only one way to find out," Louis says, pushing him on ahead in what he hopes is the direction of the tea room.

It’s not quite the tea room - that turns out to be in adjoining building - but it’s a decent Visitor Centre as far as they go. Very informative.

"Said they might close early today," Harry says as he joins them. "Expecting rain and lots of wind, so it might not be safe on the water."

"How long do we have then?" Louis asks. Not that they were planning to _go_ on the water, but he'd still fancy seeing it. 

Seeing it with Nick.

Harry checks his mobile and says, "About...two hours if they close early. Four if they don't."

"Suppose we need to get our cream tea now, eh?" Louis says, nudging Liam. 

“Right,” Liam says, and Louis thinks he sounds a little choked.

So that’s why he says to Nick, once they’re all inside the tea room, “How about you and Harold go find us a place to sit? Liam and I’ll get the food and bring it out.”

“I want juice,” Harry says, which, of course he does.

“You’ll get what you’re getting,” Louis says, dragging Liam away with him before his bottom lip gets out. Louis hates Liam’s bottom lip. It’s worse than Harry’s Bambi eyes.

“I can get him juice instead,” Liam says, once they’ve queued up.

“You’re getting him the ice cream,” Louis says, cutting off that line of thought right away. “And if he doesn’t appreciate it, then he’s being a tit and there will be words.”

Liam doesn’t look too convinced, but he orders the ice cream anyway, carrying it to the table Nick and Harry have picked out very slowly and carefully, handing the cone over to Harry just as gently.

“It had your name on it,” he says. 

“Thank you Liam,” Harry says, genuinely pleased as he’s examining the cone that indeed has “Styles” stamped on it. “What flavour is it?”

“Stem Ginger,” Liam says, eyes lighting up. “Because you like ginger.”

“I _do_ like ginger,” Harry says, turning the cone around a bit and rubbing his thumb over the stamp. “This looks like the candied kind.”

“Is that alright?”

“Of course it’s alright,” Harry says, digging in his pocket and pulling out his mobile, probably _to_ put it on Instagram. “It’s...perfect.” 

“Nick and I are gonna go sit by a different window,” Louis announces suddenly, setting down the tray and unloading Liam’s cream tea before picking the tray back up again and carrying it to an empty table under a plate glass window. There’s not a good view of the lake - the view’s mostly trees and a now partly-cloudy sky - but it’s pleasant. Ambient.

Especially when Nick slides into the seat opposite him, tangling their feet together, and immediately sets to splitting open a scone, topping it with the clotted cream and then the jam, and handing it over to Louis.

“Devon method,” he says, setting to work on his own.

“Impressive.” 

Nick laughs and slides Louis his tea. “I looked it up whilst you and Liam were stood at the counter. Since, you know, they don’t make Tomlinson brand ice cream.”

“Pity,” Louis says. “Much rather have that than the skip I saw with my last name on it.”

“You did not.”

“Did so,” Louis says, pausing to take a sip. It’s thin, but it’s _tea_. “Don’t remember where, but it was definitely a skip with my name on it. Should have taken a picture.”

“Maybe if we see one on the road we can.”

“We ought to get a list up,” Louis says, setting his tea down and reaching for his scone. “Things we want to do and see besides the reservoirs.”

“Starting with finding a skip with your name on it.”

Louis shrugs, his mouth full of food, delicious food, before he swallows and says, “Might be interesting. Styles Ice Cream. Tomlinson Skip. Payne and Grimshaw something-or-other.”

“Think I saw a lorry once that had Payne on the back.”

“Put finding that on the list too.”

“ _I’m_ making the list then?”

“Why not? I seem to remember you making a well professional spreadsheet not so long ago.”

“I was just trying to impress you actually.”

Louis’s just taken another bite of his scone, so it’s no surprise really that he feels something suddenly stuck in his throat. It takes several gulps of tea to dislodge it, although the tight, squirmy feeling in his chest doesn’t quite go away.

“I’d say it worked,” he says eventually, right before Nick’s face can fall out of that half-pleased, half-hopeful expression he’s got on it. “I was right impressed.”

Nick doesn’t say anything, just smiles and ducks his head, and because Louis had never properly said _thank you for taking care of me in the car_ , he rises out of his seat a bit, leans across the table, gets a hold of Nick’s hoodie, and pulls him into a quick kiss.

“What was that for?” Nick says, face as red as Louis’s feels, once Louis has sat back down and re-tangled their feet.

“Wasn’t sure if you believed me.”

“Interesting way you have of proving it.”

“Don’t act like you didn’t like it.”

“Isn’t that,” Nick says, reaching for Louis’s hand and squeezing it. “More like I’m worried we’re gonna get tossed out after all.”

Louis actually isn’t that bothered at the idea of being tossed out so long as he’s tossed out with Nick, but “We can run down to the lake right now if you’re so concerned about seeing it.”

“Kinda think we should,” Nick says, looking out the window at the sky that’s gone from partly to mostly cloudy. “Before that gets worse.”

“I’m ready if you are,” Louis says, bundling their empty dishes and cups onto the tray and rising out of his seat.

They pass by Liam and Harry’s table, the two of them huddled over Harry’s mobile and laughing at something or other.

“We’re going down to the water,” Louis says. “Join us whenever you like.”

“Alright,” Harry says, shooting Louis the briefest of glances and going right back to his mobile. Louis thinks he hears the distinct sounds of a cat’s meow and a Collective Soul song he hasn’t heard since he was a kid.

“Or we’ll come back to get you when it’s time to go,” he adds as he’s walking away, not even waiting for a response this time. Liam and Harry are having their time, watching...whatever it is that they’re watching, and he’s got a lake to see.

Once they’re outside, he immediately takes Nick’s hand and starts running toward the water.

“Didn’t know you meant actual running!” he hears Nick shout.

“‘Course I did!” Louis shouts back, shooting Nick a smile. “Gotta beat the rain!”

And it’s fine, really, fun even, until he hears Nick start to wheeze a bit.

He stops, bringing them both to a halt.

They’re practically at the water anyway.

“You alright there?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Nick says, waving his free hand and then sliding it into his hair. “Just wasn’t prepared is all.”

Louis is trying very hard not to feel incredibly guilty. “Don’t need your inhaler or anything, do you?”

Nick shakes his head and tugs at his hair a bit, taking a couple of deep breaths. “Don’t think so, but it’s in my pocket if you want to go getting it again.”

“Is that some kind of joke Nicholas?”

“Might have been,” Nick says, his face stretching into a smile.

“I’m your inhaler fetcher now am I?” Louis doesn’t bother keep the relief out of his voice.

“Think you are,” Nick says, stepping close.

Louis’s cheeks heat.

Because Nick’s trousers are _tight_ , like they always are, and Louis’s been in them once already -remembers the warmth of Nick’s leg quite well actually - on a similar errand, but this is definitely not that. _This_ , or a future this, is something else entirely, and he’s not sure that’s something he can handle without a lot of wine clearing the way.

No matter how much he _wishes_ it was otherwise.

“Did say I’d help you with lots of things,” is all he manages to squeak out.

Stupid useless lungs.

“You did,” Nick says, and next thing Louis knows Nick’s gingerly taking his hand. “And I can move it to my coat if that’s better for you.”

That...Louis was not expecting that.

“Why?” he asks, looking up from their hands to Nick’s face. It comes out more a breath an actual word.

Nick shrugs. “Don’t need you going elsewhere when I can’t breathe.”

 _Fuck_.

Louis is getting sloppy if Nick’s started to notice.

“Did I do it again?” he asks, gaze dropping to somewhere around Nick’s chest. 

“Yeah,” Nick says, swiping his thumb over the back of Louis’s hand. Somehow it’s...calming, the coolness of Nick’s hand covering the inferno that’s his own. “Wasn’t as bad as in the car earlier but you definitely weren’t here.”

“I don’t even know where I go,” Louis says, attempting a laugh. “Kind of like to stop going there if I’m honest.”

He’s half expecting Nick to say something like _well stop going there then_ or for him to turn right around and head back to the tea room.

He is _not_ expecting to be pulled into a hug.

“This alright?” Nick asks.

Louis nods. It’s _wonderful_ is what it is. He can’t breathe, of course, but he thinks it’s to do with something _besides_ his lungs being worthless for a change.

“I’m sorry I’m such rubbish,” he mumbles into Nick’s hoodie.

“Not rubbish,” Nick says right away, almost before Louis has even finished speaking. “Think you need a break though.”

Louis’s heart stops at the word _break_.

Everything stops.

“Not from me,” Nick adds hastily. “I mean, unless you want one. I just...I think you need a break from whatever it is that makes you do that.”

“Don’t know if I’m ever going to get a break from that.” 

Louis sounds almost sullen his voice is so leaden.

“Good thing you’ve got me to distract you then. If you want.”

Louis _does_ want.

He tells Nick so.

“Alright,” Nick says, smile creeping back onto his face. “Then first thing we’re doing is getting pictures of the lake for Mr Bento and heading right back in. Think I felt a rain drop just now.”

“There is one on your nose.”

“There is not,” Nick says, but he does rub at it.

“Well there isn’t _now_ ,” Louis says, right as another drop lands squarely in his eye followed by another on his cheek and another in his hair and another and another, each one coming quicker than the last.

“That was sudden,” Nick says, tilting his head back to the sky.

“Think you summoned the rain Nicholas,” Louis says, tilting his head up as well.

“That make me the Rain King then?”

“Might do.”

And Louis thinks that they ought to be getting out of the rain, seeing the lake be damned, but he’s never been stood in the rain with someone before. It’s cold and it’s stupid, and they’re going to have to change their clothes, obviously, but Nick’s still warm and Louis really likes the sight of him right about now, hair plastered to his forehead and all.

It gets even better when Nick leans in and kisses him, moving a hand up to cup his jaw and his other arm still securely around Louis’s waist. Louis can’t do anything but sigh and melt into it.

Melt into _Nick._

“There,” Nick says, pulling away at last and looking almost bashful he’s so soft. “Now you can say you’ve been kissed in the rain.”

“ _Was_ a life goal of mine,” Louis says, smiling wide, his heart threatening to beat out of his chest.

"Really?" 

Nick looks about as goofily happy as Louis feels.

Louis hums. "Went ‘snog a Nicholas in the rain’ followed by ‘play for Donny.’"

"That’s awfully specific."

Louis shrugs. "Is what it is I'm afraid."”

“Suppose there’s no arguing with that.”

“Suppose you’re right,” Louis says, going up on his toes to kiss Nick back. He has to grab ahold of Nick’s hoodie to steady himself, but it works, and Nick’s not complaining, and he’s so _warm_ despite the rain and the wind pushing at them that it’s a pity they eventually have to stop.

But only because it’s nearly coming down in _torrents_ , and even Liam and Harry have to have noticed by now.

“Need to get back to the centre, yeah?” Louis asks, Nick’s forehead resting on his own.

“We haven’t seen the lake.”

Louis laughs. It’s all he can do.

“Reckon we ought to go see it then.”

“We did come all this way.”

“Would be a shame to miss it after Harold brought us so far.”

Nick nods against his forehead and pulls away, grabbing onto his hand and leading him to the water’s edge.

“Somehow expected it’d be calmer.”

“Probably the tempest coming in,” Nick says, and the wind _is_ so completely a different animal from the wind at Venford that Louis has no reservations at all about burrowing right into Nick’s side, looping his arms around Nick’s waist.

“Be on the lookout for Caliban then.”

“Caliban?”

“From _The Tempest_. Shakespeare. He’s the main villain.”

“Don’t think I read that one.”

“It’s alright. Preferred the Henry plays myself.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Falstaff?"

Nick shrugs, and Louis is just about to say that he’ll tell him about him in the car if he likes, when he very distinctly hears, “Can’t leave you two alone for a minute.”

Turning around, he sees Harry and Liam, well, mostly Harry, glaring at the both of them from under a large black umbrella that’s somehow managing to hold its shape. 

Harry’s probably bewitched it.

“We _were_ on our way back in Harold,” Louis says, dragging Nick under the umbrella with him. It’s pointless, really - he and Nick are already sopping wet and there’s no way the four of them are all gonna fit - but it’s the effort that counts.

"There’s not anywhere to clean your clothes," Harry says. "I checked."

"They have showers though," Liam puts in, ever helpful.

"Don't think we're needing a shower Li."

"Might could wring your clothes out in it at least."

And that...actually is a good idea.

He’s about to tell Liam so when Harry beats him to it, and at any other time he wouldn’t appreciate the interruption, but Liam’s so inordinately pleased and Louis has no intention of doing anything to change that.

“And where are these showers Payno?” Louis asks, stopping just short of slinging his arm around Liam’s shoulders, having remembered he’s very damp and Liam is very not. He sticks it around Nick’s waist instead. Nick’s damp too, after all, but his arm’s still warm when it comes up and rests around Louis’s shoulders.

“Back up there by the Visitor Centre,” Liam says, pointing in that general direction.

“Lead on then,” Louis says, and Liam does.

They’ve only gone a few steps when Louis suddenly remembers something.

“Hang on a sec,” he says, grabbing the back of Liam’s coat.

And because Liam loves him - or at least that’s what Louis is assuming since he’s not biting his head off like he thinks Harry would right now - he stops. 

“Forgot to get a picture,” he says, digging in his hoodie for his mobile, pulling it out, and snapping what he hopes are a few good shots of the lake. They’ll probably come out all blurry since his hands are shaking a bit with the cold and a random fit of nerves - _why?_ \- but maybe he can pretend they’re art or something.

“Think a group selfie would be better actually,” Nick says, and _yes_ , _thank you_.

“Here? Under the umbrella?” Harry asks.

“Ella, ella,” Nick says right away, and Louis laughs.

“You really are not funny,” he says, beaming up at him.

“Am so,” Nick says, grinning back down at _him_.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Harry roll both of his.

“Don’t be jealous Harold,” he says, reaching over and poking him in the stomach. “Someday your prince will come.” If he digs his foot into Liam’s after saying that, eliciting a little yelp of surprise and sending him _into_ Harry, well, then it’s absolutely an accident. Nothing coincidental at all.

“For that you’re walking back in the rain,” Harry says, letting go of Liam’s shoulder, and he really is about to turn back around when Nick grabs onto _his_ coat.

“Selfie first!” he says, brandishing his mobile in his free hand, and that sets Liam to laughing.

“Almost like ‘safety first’ innit?” he says.

“Could put that on a shirt Liam,” Louis says. “Selfie first. Sell it to the hipsters like our Harold and our Nicholas here.”

Nick laughs at that, and Harry just smiles and shakes his head, moving closer when Nick reels him in.

“Don’t act like you wouldn’t wear it Harold,” Louis says, grabbing Liam by the shoulders and bringing him in as well.

“I’ll have you know I would wear it actually,” is Harry’s response.

“See there Liam,” Louis says, still holding him by the shoulders and leaning forward a little to see his face. “Got you a customer already.”

Liam turns to look him in the eye, and he’s _definitely_ a bit pink. “Did see an advert for a shirt printing company on the telly. Some company with a squid for a mascot,” he says, almost whispering it.

“Look it up in the car,” Louis whispers back, patting Liam’s cheek and pulling away.

They get their selfie taken with only a minimal amount of fuss - the fuss being Harry’s absolute _refusal_ to go back to the Visitor Centre and purchase a selfie stick since, according to him, he’d already paid for parking and a map no one outside of Liam had even bothered looking at - and then, because Louis is a very gracious person, he lets Liam and Harry go back under the umbrella, more than content to walk in the rain that’s slacked off a bit whilst holding onto Nick’s hand.

“Think Harry really would wear that shirt?” he asks, once Liam and Harry have got far enough away.

“Think so,” Nick says, nodding. “Ironically if nothing else.”

That is definitely something Harry would do. Something he’d _love_ doing. Louis can see the expression on his face right now.

“Sometimes I think Liam’s a little too perfect for him.”

“Is odd they haven’t realised it ‘til now.”

It _is_ odd. Louis has been living with the two of them for a year now, has known them for two, and it’s only recently even became a _thing_ between them.

“You think that’s why Harold’s been so grumpy lately? Upset he didn’t think of it first?”

He sees Nick shrug out of the corner of his eye. “Maybe. Probably have to ask him.”

“Think I will ask him,” Louis says. They’re looking at about a four-hour drive into Kent next, after all, and he’s not spending it with Harry in a strop. “After we’re dry.”

~*~

Harry, surprisingly, brings Louis his clothes when he asks and, also surprisingly, doesn’t protest when Louis drags him into a shower stall with him, one situated at the far end so Liam and Nick can’t hear them.

“Alright Harold,” he says, peeling off his wet clothes and letting them land with a bunch of squishy sounds on the tile. Which, _gross_ , so he scoops them right back up and puts them on the seat built into the wall. That’s got to have slightly less microscopic life on it at least. “Spill.”

“Spill what?” Harry asks, heading right over to Louis’s clothes and beginning to squeeze the water out, folding them after he’s done.

“Oh nothing,” Louis says, drying himself off as best he can with someone’s borrowed blanket. He thinks it’s Nick’s given that he’s never seen it until now, and he’s sure he’d remember a purple blanket with what looks like a scaly kind of pattern on it. “Just, you’ve been a right tit all morning, and the only time I’ve seen you look remotely happy is when Liam got you that ice cream. And I’m not going into Kent with you like this, so if you don’t tell me what’s up right this second, then I’ll be driving us back to the flat myself.”

“Thought being Dad was Liam’s job,” Harry says, smirking a bit before it quickly fades and he goes back to sorting Louis’s damp things.

“Well Dad’s too busy being besotted with you, so it’s fallen on me I’m afraid.”

Harry freezes and turns very, very pale.

“He say that?” he asks eventually, clearing his throat.

“Not in so many words,” Louis says. “Although I’d have to say it’s fairly obvious at this point.”

Harry nods. “It is.”

“D’you not like it?” Louis asks, waiting until Harry’s turned his attention to getting the water out of Louis’s hoodie before quickly changing his pants and pulling his jeans on over them. “Nick and I can stop trying to push it if you don’t. We just thought you felt the same is all.”

Harry huffs out a very unconvincing laugh. “It’s not that I don’t _like_ it. It’s just...it’s weird.”

“Because it’s Liam?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says, folding Louis’s hoodie very neatly and staring down at it. “Maybe.”

“Gonna need you to elaborate a bit more than that Harold.”

“Well how did you handle it when you and Nick started...your thing?”

 _Badly_ is Louis’s immediate thought, remembering the majestic disaster that’d been their first date.

And _oh_.

“So you do fancy him.”

Harry’s still looking down at Louis’s hoodie, fingering the zip. “I think I do.”

“And you don’t know what to do with that.”

Harry looks at him then, giving him a very slight nod.

“I think it’s more...I think I always thought I was...open, but now…”

“But now you’re in a position where you can actually do something about it. There’s an actual _person_ and not a theory.”

Harry deflates a little, but Louis thinks he almost looks relieved for a split second before his face clouds over again.

“I don’t know how to do anything with a guy.”

 _It’s not that hard_ is Louis’s immediate thought, but he decides just as quickly that that’s not very helpful.

“But you want to,” he says instead.

Harry nods again. 

“Well you did alright picking Liam,” Louis says, pulling on a dark blue jumper that he’s sure actually belongs to Harry. “Think if you blinked at him just right he’d be over the moon.”

“But what if…” Harry says, stopping short.

“What if what?” Louis asks, raising his eyebrows.

“What if it turns out I don’t actually like it? What if it’s just...something I’m not into after all?” Harry asks. “If it’s fine in theory but not in practice.”

Louis...really does not know what to say to that.

But he figures he’s got to at least _try_ or they’ll never get out of this shower stall, definitely won’t be getting into Kent, so he says, sorting it out as he goes, “Alright, so.”

“So,” Harry echoes, and Louis would thump him for being a shit at a time like this, but he gets the feeling it’s helping somehow.

He _hopes_ it’s helping somehow.

“Do you want to snog Nick?”

And that...is not quite what he meant to say.

“Are you really offering me your boyfriend?” 

“God no,” Louis says, and he’ll save the panicking over whether or not Nick’s his actual boyfriend for later, thanks. “More like I meant if the option were on the table is that something you’d want to do?”

Harry shakes his head. “But that’s just because it’s Nick. I know him too well.”

“What about me then?”

Harry laughs a little. “Definitely know you too well.”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Okay wiseass. If you _didn’t_ know us, would you want to snog either of us? Is that something you can see yourself doing in that curly head of yours?”

Harry turns a little pink and nods. 

“Can you see yourself _enjoying_ it?”

Harry’s face gets a little more flushed and he nods again.

“So why’s it so different with Liam?”

Harry sobers instantly. 

“It’s not really...different but...he’s...he’s Liam,” he says.

“He’s...Liam.”

It gets terribly quiet after that, and then it’s suddenly crystal clear.

“You don’t want to hurt him.”

Harry’s mouth drops open. He closes it and turns right back to Louis’s clothes, his face so pink it’s almost red.

“He’s so _good_ Louis, and I don’t…”

Louis, he understands.

“You don’t want to use him to find out whether you’re as open-minded as you think you are.”

Harry looks like he’s about to fall over. Louis grabs him by the arm and pulls him into a hug before he can.

And there’s so many things he _could_ say, but none of them sound true, sound _right_.

Because he knows Liam _would_ be hurt. He’d try hiding it, sure, but Louis has already been there with him through one breakup - back in their first year when some dickhead named Charles left him and he wouldn’t eat to the point where his cheekbones got _really_ prominent - and he knows he’d be there for Liam again, no question, but if that’s something he can avoid, then by god he will.

And it’s not like he can tell Harry to go snog a random in the interest of finding out either. Because _that’d_ hurt Liam too, and he’s sure he and Harry both know it.

“I wish Liam were here,” he says, not even thinking. “He’d know what we should do.”

Harry, thankfully, laughs.

“He would. He’d probably have us make one of those...pros and cons...things.”

That’s...actually not a bad idea.

“We could,” he says, squeezing Harry and pulling away. “A quick one though because Nick and Liam are probably wondering what’s taking us so long.”

“Okay,” Harry says, putting on what Louis guesses is his game face.

“Okay. So we’ve established why snogging Liam could be bad.” 

“The main reason, yes.”

“So what we have to do now is figure out why it would be _good_ ,” Louis says, sliding his feet into his shoes, his usual insistence on bringing three pairs paying off because these ones are _dry_.

“Liam’s fit?”

“He is.”

“He’s a good person.”

“He is definitely that.”

“His face does that...scrunchy thing...when he laughs.”

“That it does, although when did you start paying attention to that?”

Harry ducks his head, looking almost shy, and the Harry Styles Louis has known since he first came to uni two years ago rarely, if ever, looks shy.

“The day he said he’d looked up pressure cookers. It’s dumb probably, but I thought...he might have done that for me, and I dunno...I just started noticing things after that.”

“I believe he absolutely did that for you, so no, not dumb.”

“You do?” Harry’s smiling so wide his dimples are starting to show.

Louis nods and takes his clothes from off the seat, edging toward the stall door. “ _I_ wouldn’t have looked up pressure cookers for you.”

“No you probably wouldn’t have done,” Harry says, shaking his head and starting to follow him. “Although I think Nick’d do that for you.”

“Do you now?” Louis says, turning to face him. He’d be lying if he said he _didn’t_ feel all loose and fluttery at the idea of anyone, let alone Nicholas with his hair and his face, looking up something so dull as kitchen gadgetry on his behalf. Not that he can really envision a _use_ for kitchen gadgetry, but the idea, that’s a nice one.

“He got cross with me last week because I couldn’t tell him what your favourite book is.”

_Did he?_

“I don’t have a favourite book.”

“S’what I told him. Don’t think he appreciated it.”

“Why’d he want to know what my favourite book is?” He knows he probably ought to be resolving Harry’s issue, since they technically haven’t done that yet, but this, this is important.

Harry shrugs. “Probably wanted to read it. It’s what I’d have done, trying to impress someone I fancied.”

And now Louis has to think of a favourite book. A _real_ favourite he can somehow get Nick to read. He thinks he’d like getting Nick to read a book, discussing it with him afterward. It actually makes him feel a bit warm inside, despite the water dripping off his hair and going down the back of his jumper, creating these icy little trails down his spine. And _that_ makes him think of _fingers_ , Nick’s fingers, going down his spine, and he can’t help but shiver.

“You okay?” Harry asks, and right.

“Great actually thanks,” Louis says, and to make sure, “You gonna be alright?”

Harry nods. “Think I know what I have to do.”

“What’s that?” 

“Well...he got me an ice cream right?”

“Not just any ice cream.”

“That’s right. Ice cream with my _name_ on it.”

“So…?”

“So I’m gonna get...him...something. Don’t know...what...yet, but I think that’s the best thing. Get him something nice.”

“A series of escalating presents then?”

“Something like that, yes.”

And Louis would like to know what he plans on doing _besides_ the presents, but they’ve already been in here long enough, it’s a decent idea for a start, and he thinks he hears footsteps coming in their direction anyway. Hopefully they don’t belong to Liam.

“Well if you need help thinking of things to get him, just ask, yeah?”

“Yeah, alright,” Harry says, nodding again, and he picks up probably Nick’s blanket and follows Louis through the stall door, closing it carefully behind himself. 

Nick, not Liam, is waiting for them just outside.

"Where's Payno?" Louis asks, looking around Nick and trying to spot him.

"He's bringing the car around," Nick says, slouching a bit against the wall. "So we don't have to go out in the rain so much again."

“I’ll, um, go wait for him,” Harry says, squeezing past Louis and heading toward the exit door.

Once he’s out of earshot, Nick immediately turns to Louis and asks, “So?”

“So he’s confused,” Louis says, picking a spot on the wall next to Nick and slouching into _him_. “Or not...confused, that’s not the right word. Just, you know how he’s got all these ideas, right? About being open to _anything_ and not letting yourself get pinned down as one thing or another?”

He can feel Nick’s nod from where his head’s resting a bit on Louis’s own. It’s his new favourite Nick habit, even if it can’t be good for Nick’s neck.

“Well now he’s actually got to do something instead of just talking about it, and he doesn’t want to screw it up.”

Not that Louis knows _exactly_ how that feels.

“So what’s he gonna do?”

Louis laughs a bit, remembering.

“Buy him presents believe it or not.”

“Presents?”

Louis can only imagine what Nick’s eyebrows are doing. 

He _likes_ imagining what Nick’s eyebrows are doing.

“Yep,” he says. “Series of escalating presents. Since Liam got him the ice cream with his name on it.”

Nick laughs a little too. “Only thing I know of with Payne on it is that lorry I told you about.”

“Better not tell Harold then. He probably _would_ try getting it and there’s no way it’s fitting in our flat.”

“You could live in it.”

“ _I_ couldn’t. It’d be _Liam’s_ lorry, so I probably wouldn’t be allowed in.”

“Liam’d let you in though.”

“He would,” Louis says, closing his eyes. He’s very comfortable, after all.

Which is why he tells Harry to go away when he comes back to collect the two of them.

“You can sleep in the backseat Louis,” Harry says, pulling at his arm.

“Thought it was my turn to navigate,” Louis says, drawing his arm closer to himself so Harry can’t get it. He’s probably going to have a damp spot on his jumper now from the wet clothes he’s still holding, but it’s worth it if he doesn’t have to move.

“I’m taking your turn,” Harry says, and Louis’s eyes fly open at that. “You can navigate when Nick drives,” he adds with a bit of a smirk. “Ought to be interesting since Nick _can’t_ drive.”

“Hey,” he hears Nick say, with a definitely wounded tilt to it, and Louis has to stifle a laugh, rubbing his elbow across Nick’s stomach very gently in what he’s aiming to be reassurance.

“Nicholas drives just fine Harold,” he says. “Or at least he did the night we went to Venford. Got me home in one piece and everything.”

“Only because you’re you,” Harry says, and when Louis looks up at Nick, he just nods in confirmation.

And it’s surprisingly alright, hearing that, _seeing_ that. No absurd rushy... _things_ springing up to mess with his head, take him elsewhere.

“I _am_ very important,” he says at last, pressing into Nick’s side and then straightening himself up to lead the way out.

~*~

The rain’s still falling, albeit a lot more gently, although the wind, _holy shit the wind_ , has gone from merely pushy to straight-up _gusting_ , and it takes every little bit of Louis’s strength to pull the Renault’s door closed behind him after he’s got in.

“Are we even gonna be able to drive in this?” he asks.

Which is a silly question, really, because it’s Liam driving, and if Liam can’t drive in this, then Louis doesn’t think _anybody_ could.

“Gonna see how far we get,” Liam says, twisting around in his seat to look at Louis. “Although if it gets too bad, we’ll have to find a place to stop for a while.”

“Is it supposed to get bad?” Louis asks.

“Met Office says there’s...a wind warning, so probably,” Harry puts in, glancing down at his mobile.

“Then we probably ought to be finding somewhere to stop for a while anyway,” Louis says, getting out _his_ mobile and searching for the nearest hostel. “Looks like we can either stay in...Street, which is closest or...Salisbury, about halfway through. Or there’s one in Dorking if you want someplace nearer to Kent.”

“Doesn’t matter much to me,” Nick puts in. Harry just shrugs when Louis looks at him.

“Li?” he asks, prodding the back of Liam’s seat. “You’re the driver. You should pick.”

“Is there a difference between the one in Street and the one in Salisbury?” Liam asks, having taken his moment to consider it.

Louis checks.

“Looks like the one in Salisbury’s got a few more things than the one in Street,” he says. “Like, there’s a restaurant so we don’t have to bring our own food. And it looks like it’s a bit cheaper too.”

“Salisbury then,” Liam says, putting the car in drive and slowly edging forward.

“Salisbury,” Louis repeats, locating the booking page and looking at his options. “You lot want a private room or you want to do bunks?”

“ _I_ don’t want to do bunks,” Nick says.

“Of course you don’t,” Louis says, still scanning, checking the prices, and wincing when he sees how much a 4-person room is. “You wouldn’t fit in a bunk. You _or_ Harold probably. Liam and I’d have to be sawing your legs off first.”

“I’m not sawing off anybody’s legs,” Liam says, deadly serious.

He hears a snort from Harry’s direction.

“Me either,” Louis says, patting Nick’s leg. Nick grabs his hand, and when Louis looks over at him, he’s all flushed and pleased. Louis squeezes his hand, pulls _his_ away, and squeezes Nick’s leg before getting back to work. “Don’t suppose anyone’s opposed to sharing a bed are they?”

The Renault gets instantly quiet.

Louis really thinks he could hear a pin drop, that is, if someone was going around dropping pins in cars.

“It’s just that...it’s eighty-nine quid if we get a four-person room, sixty-three if we get a three-person room with a double bed.”

“D’you think we’d all fit in the three-person room?” Liam asks.

“I think I’d like to try fitting if it means we’re spending about sixteen quid each instead of twenty-three,” Louis says.

“I don’t mind trying if they’ll let us,” Nick says, and Louis doesn’t think it’s his imagination that he looks a little pale.

Louis certainly feels a bit pale himself.

Just, if there is going to be bed sharing, he’s fairly sure that he and Nick are going to be the ones _doing_ the sharing since they’re in a relationship of sorts. And it’s not that he _minds_ or that he’s _afraid_ , because Nick’s been nothing but gentle with him so far, _thank god_ , but it’s more that it’s a something he can’t back away from, a something that’s going to put him on the road to that _certain_ something he really _is_ afraid of.

He reaches out and flails his hand a bit until Nick takes it, and when he does, Louis gusts out a small sigh of relief.

That’s better at least.

Grounding, almost, if he had to pick a word.

“Wait,” he hears Harry say, and Louis’s eyes snap up to meet his where he’s turned around in his seat. “If it’s a three-person room and a double bed, where’s the other person sleeping? If it were three people like it’s supposed to be.”

Nick clears his throat. “Probably a single bed in with the double. Imagine they’d sleep there.”

“Can two of us fit in a single, you think?” Harry asks.

“Think Nick and Louis could,” Liam says, and Louis might feel a bit faint at that. At the idea of the two of them not just squished into a bed together, but squished into a _small_ bed together.

“Might could,” Nick says, whilst Louis’s heart is pounding away in his ears. “Or we could just get the four-person room. Might still have to share beds but it wouldn’t be so crowded as trying to squeeze two people into a single.”

“Think that’d probably work better,” Harry says. “Sorry Lou.”

He actually does look apologetic, but Louis understands. He thinks the both of them need the room, so to speak.

“S’alright Haz,” he says. “Alright, Li?”

“Yeah it’s fine,” Liam says, so Louis sets about getting them their four-person room.

“We get a discount off breakfast if I add that in now,” he says. “10%.”

“So we’re staying the night in Salisbury then?” Liam asks.

“Might as well,” Louis says, checking the time and seeing that it’s just gone two. They really had left Brompton Regis right on time. “Not like we’re in a hurry to go anywhere, and it’ll probably be late afternoon when we reach Salisbury anyway.”

“Ought to get there by half four actually,” Harry says. “At least according to the RAC. Says it’ll take about two hours and fifteen minutes to get to Salisbury from here.”

“What time’s check-in at the hostel?” Liam asks.

“Three,” Louis says, leaving the booking page and checking to make sure that 15:00 he’d seen as a check-in wasn’t an illusion. Turns out it wasn’t. “Until eleven.”

“So we might get there in time for dinner then,” Liam says.

“Early dinner maybe,” Louis says, trying to find a list of meal times but not able to. “Although they have this Supper Club thing we can do if any of you fancy mingling with other people, but that’s not until 7.”

“I think Supper Club might be interesting,” Nick says at the same time that Liam says, “Dunno if I want to wait ‘til seven for my dinner.”

“Well _I’m_ voting for Supper Club,” Harry says, giving Liam a little tap on his arm and adding, “Get you something when we stop for petrol if that’s alright.”

Louis can really only see Liam’s ear but it looks like it’s a very pink ear as he’s saying, “Yeah. That’s...it’s alright.”

And Louis is just about to yell out Liam’s favourite snacks when he thinks better of it, minimizes the hostel site, and sends Harry a text:

 _his favourite is chocolate_ .

Harry responds right away: _Curly Wurly?_ followed immediately after by _You know, on account of his old curly wurly hair._

Louis sends back: _that’s fucking genius Harold_ . 

It really is.

Harry shoots him a pleased smile before he turns back around.

“So we’re staying the night,” Louis says, going back to his booking. “Gonna do this Supper Club deal tonight, sleep in our four-person room, and eat our 10% off breakfast in the...what the hell are you doing with my phone?”

Because Nick’s suddenly got his mobile, and he’s twisted around in his seat so Louis can’t get it back.

“Booking us a room,” Nick says, easy as anything, like he _hasn’t_ just snatched Louis’s mobile out of his bare hands.

“Why are you-” Louis asks, almost demands, stopping only when he sees Nick reach for his wallet, and _oh_. That doesn’t feel very good. “You don’t have to do that,” he says, fighting down the sudden urge to be sick and very much ignoring Harry who’s turned around. “I can get it.”

“You can get the next one,” Nick says, wedging his bank card into the window’s edge trim and glancing between it and Louis’s mobile as he’s typing the numbers in.

“That’s not a bad idea you know,” Harry says, which, _thanks_.

“What is?” Louis says, slumping down in his seat, barely registering Nick setting his mobile very gently atop his thigh once he’s finished with it, too busy trying to absorb himself in watching the raindrops leave trails across his window.

“Like...each of us paying for _a_ room,” Harry says. “Instead of...dividing the cost, one of us would just...pay each time.”

“How would that even work?” Louis asks.

“I think he means we just need to stop at four of these hostel places whilst we’re on our trip,” Liam says, and Louis was wholly not expecting him to pipe in at all. “So each one of us gets a chance to pay for a room instead of dividing it each time and running around trying to figure out who owes who what.”

That...just might work actually. It is a lot simpler, at any rate.

“Alright, fine,” Louis says, because at this point, _why not_? “But I’m paying for the next one, wherever it is.”

“We promise we won’t steal your mobile and book a room until you’ve had the chance to pay for one yourself,” Harry says solemnly, and if Louis were sat behind him instead of behind Liam, he’d give his seat a solid thump.

“I was only trying to help,” Nick says.

“Well help differently next time,” Louis says, hating how snappishly it comes out but unable to stop it. “Ask first maybe.”

“Okay,” Nick says, and Louis _really_ hates how _that_ comes out, all quiet and...chastened.

“Listen,” he says, sitting up straight, leaning over, and pulling Nick close, whispering into his ear, “I just...don’t want you to think you’ve got to...take care of me like that.”

“I’m sorry,” Nick whispers back. “It’s just, you’re always talking about me being a posh bastard, so I thought you wouldn’t mind if I paid.”

“You are a posh bastard,” Louis says, still whispering. “But it’s not fair if you’re doing all the paying, okay? ‘Least give me a _chance_ of doing it before you jump in like that.”

“Okay,” Nick says, but he still looks the tiniest bit unhappy, and Louis hasn’t ever really stopped hating it when his face gets like that, even if it’s a much rarer sight than it used to be.

“You can get me something when we stop for petrol,” he says, still low and tilted into Nick’s shoulder. The seatbelt’s actually starting to annoy the fuck out of his neck from pulling at it, but this is a bit more important, he thinks. “Might get upset if Liam gets something and I don’t.”

Nick’s face relaxes, and he smiles just a bit. That’s better. “What’s Liam getting?”

“Are you gonna try and top it?”

Nick nods and bites his lip. “Don’t think you’d forgive me otherwise.”

“You’re not wrong about that Nicholas,” Louis says, finally moving the shoulder belt off of himself to get a bit of relief. He can put it back on in a minute, or whenever Liam kicks up a fuss, whichever comes first. “And I want crisps. Salt and vinegar. Or maybe cheese and onion. I’ll let you pick.”

“I’ll just get you both,” Nick says, and his smile’s a bit wider. That’s a _lot_ better. 

“I’ll let you get me both,” Louis says, because he will, if only to make Nick feel better. “Just this once though.”

“Alright,” Nick says. “And I’ll let you get me something when get to Salisbury. Since we’re being fair.”

“I will _absolutely_ get you something in Salisbury.” Even the very _idea_ is delightful. “I’ll get you the _best_ thing, you just wait and see.”

“Counting on it then,” Nick says, his cheeks ever so slightly pink.

And since he’s over here anyway, Louis figures he might as well lean in and kiss him just a bit, _because_ Nick’s cheeks are pink and his hair’s dried funny, sticking out at odd angles all over his head, and it’s so fucking... _endearing_ that Louis really _does_ have to press his lips to Nick’s just to keep from saying something ridiculous.

Something ridiculous like _I really am so very fond of you Nicholas_.

Not quite the l-word and not quite so terrifying for once.

He might even could write it down. He thinks he’d like to write it down, pull it out and look at it on the nights when it’s just him in his room and Nick’s on the radio, so close and so far away all at the same time.

So that’s what he does when they break apart, right after he tries, unsuccessfully, to get a bit of Nick’s hair to stay out of his face, giving up in the end and just ever so lightly patting it down for him. He gets out his mobile and starts typing it into a Gdoc, very careful not to let Nick see what he’s doing. Midway through he gets the idea that he’ll let Nick see one day, once he’s figured out a favourite book for him to read so he can scribble it in the margins somewhere for Nick to find.

He makes a note so he won’t forget, and then immediately pulls up his Kindle app and starts scrolling through his books, trying to find the _one_ he can get for Nick and have him read.

~*~

The problem with having literally _thousands_ of books in his Kindle cloud is that first, it’s impossible to narrow it down to just one, and second, by the time they decide to stop in Taunton he’s already got bored with looking.

He stays in the Renault whilst Liam’s getting their petrol and Nick and Harry are getting the snacks, figuring someone’s got to do it and also very much _not_ interested in getting back out in the wind that’s still raging just as much as it had been back in Brompton Regis, given how wildly he sees Harry’s hair being blown about.

But soon Liam’s tapping at his window, and he has to roll it down. A little bit of the wind gets in, but it’s not bitterly cold out like he thought it might be, so that’s something at least.

“Alright, Li?” he asks.

Liam nods. “Thought I’d just drive the rest of the way into Salisbury if that’s alright.”

It’s actually more than alright with Louis, since it’s technically _his_ turn to drive, and he really would prefer not to in this weather.

“Perfectly alright,” he says. “Didn’t even have to ask really.”

“I know,” Liam says. “Just thought I would is all.”

Of course he would.

And because Louis thinks he looks a little down and a bit uncertain, he says, “I think Harry really liked his ice cream.”

As if on cue, Liam’s face lights right up. “He did?”

Louis nods. “Probably would have saved the cone if he could have.”

Liam blushes down at his feet before looking back up and asking, “You think so?”

“Of course I do _Leeyum_ ,” Louis says, and, seeing Nick and Harry emerge from the shop, he adds, “Just remembered I’ve got to tell Nick something. Something...important.”

Liam nods and goes so far to open Louis’s door for him, because he really _is_ a good person, and once Louis has got his shoes back on and jumped out, he actually _runs_ up to Nick and Harry, grabbing onto Nick’s elbow and steering him back toward the shop.

“Nicholas here forgot something,” he calls out to Harry, pushing Nick inside. “We’ll only be a moment, you go ahead!”

“I didn’t forget anything,” Nick says, once Louis’s pulled the door to behind himself. “I got you both kinds of crisps, like you wanted.”

“Did you really?” Louis says absently, dragging Nick along with him to one of the windows, positioning them behind a Pepsi display so that they’re not _completely_ obvious.

“I did,” Nick says, opening his bag and tilting it so Louis can see inside. 

And wait a minute…

“That is more than two packets of crisps Nicholas.”

“Maybe I want crisps,” Nick says, and Louis might almost believe him but for how his face is just the tiniest bit flushed.

But Louis hasn’t got time for telling Nick off for buying half the crisp selection, so he just says, “You better want crisps.”

“I do,” Nick says. “Have to see what Cheesy Beans on Toast flavour is all about.”

“Cheesy Beans on Toast?” Louis turns his attention from the window at that.

“Yeah,” Nick says, digging around in his bag and pulling out what is indeed a packet of crisps with a blue label and “Cheesy Beans on Toast” printed across the front of it. “Says it’s flavoured with cheddar from here in Somerset so I felt like I had to get it.”

“That is the kind of thing you do on a road trip,” Louis says, and he is actually well impressed at the sheer...thoughtfulness of it. “Might want to get a picture of it so we can show Mr Bento when we get back.”

“Or we could save him the packet,” Nick says, and that’s not such a bad idea either, even if it means they’re technically just saving their rubbish to take home with them.

“Or we could take the picture _and_ save the packet.”

That’s an even better idea, yes.

“Alright,” Nick says, closing his bag and digging in his coat for his mobile. Louis burrows into his side and takes the bag from him, getting the packet of Cheesy Beans on Toast crisps out again, and the two of them pose with it like it’s something Nick didn’t pick up at a random petrol station just off the A358.

It makes an absurd picture. 

Louis loves it.

Loves the way it makes Nick laugh when he looks at it.

"Don't know if I'll be showing that one to Mr Bento," Nick says. "Might just decide to keep it for myself."

"At least send me a copy first if you do," Louis says, so stupidly pleased.

"Sending you one right now," Nick says, already typing away.

The picture lands in Louis’s text messages almost instantly, and he wastes no time setting it as his home screen, not even bothering to hide what he’s doing from Nick.

He can really be so embarrassingly gross sometimes.

"Like that," Nick says, and when Louis looks up through his fringe at him, he’s fiddling with his mobile, eventually turning it to show Louis that he’s changed his wallpaper as well.

"We are so disgusting," Louis says, launching himself at Nick, entirely too giddy to second-guess it, getting a good grip on his waist, and hauling him back outside, lest the two of them get hauled out by someone else for getting sap all over the floors.

"The most disgusting," Nick says, amused, getting just as good a grip on Louis’s shoulders for the short but very warm walk back to the Renault.

Liam and Harry are already inside, not that Louis didn’t expect them not to be since _the fucking wind has yet to stop_ , and while he didn't necessarily expect to see Liam all twinkle-eyed over a Curly Wurly, he’d _hoped_ he would, and it’s so good that he does that he doesn't even remark on it as he’s getting settled in his seat, just giving Harry a very light touch on his elbow instead, shooting him a thumbs up and a goofy-ass look when he turns around.

Harry grins at him, all wide and dimpled, and because Louis is still half high off being an idiot just now, he starts drumming on the back of Liam’s seat, yelling "Salisbury!" until Liam starts the car and gets them back on the road.

~*~

“This is absurd,” Louis says, leaned into Nick’s side as the four of them are crossing the car park and heading up a circular drive, having finally made it to a Salisbury that’s just as _blustery_ as Taunton and Brompton Regis had been.

“I know,” Harry says from up ahead. “It’s not Wednesday.”

“What does...nevermind I don’t want to know,” Louis says, burrowing ever closer into Nick, whose height’s apparently useless against _gale force winds_. Nick gets a firmer grip on his shoulder, which, that’s nice at least. Gives him some reassurance that when he’s blown clear out to the Channel he’ll have someone, even better because it’d be _Nick_ , with him.

“It’s because Wednesday sounds like _winds_ day,” Liam says, running up a bit and opening the door for them, holding it as they’re going through.

“ _Thank you_ Liam,” Louis says, actually well aware of what Harry meant. Aware yes, amused no.

But that’s probably mostly because his hair’s all out of sorts, and he hates it when his hair’s out of sorts, especially when he can’t escape to the loos and fix it, just has to be stood there like an idiot whilst Nick’s getting them checked in, patting it down and smoothing it and trying not to fuck up his part.

“I think I’ve got a headband in my bag,” Harry says, leaning over and whispering to him.

“Need a hat,” Louis whispers back. “Or a paper bag.”

“You do not,” Harry says, swinging his bag around and digging in it for a bit before coming out with a bright blue beanie. “Not a hat but it’ll do.”

“Thanks Harold,” Louis says, taking it and cramming it on his head right away. It’s big enough that he could get it down almost completely over his eyes if he fancied doing so - Harry really does have a giant head - but it’s warm, and it covers up his ridiculous hair so Louis isn’t complaining.

Louis is tired and still a bit annoyed, but he isn’t complaining.

“Rooms are upstairs,” Nick says as he joins them, stuffing what looks like a receipt or something into his pocket. “And the Supper Club thing’s still at seven, although they have drinks beforehand so you can get to know people before dinner if you like.”

“I want a drink,” Louis mumbles, turning into Nick’s side, feeling a little better when Nick’s arm comes up and rests on his shoulders. “And a nap. In that order.”

“We can go out and get a drink somewhere,” Liam says, already pulling out his mobile, but Louis waves him off.

“S’fine,” he says. “Think I’d rather have a sleep actually. But you can go if you want. You and Harold.”

“I don’t get to go?”

And mostly because Louis is feeling selfish, he grabs onto Nick just a bit tighter and says, “‘Fraid you don’t. Still windy out there and I can’t have you getting blown away.”

“But you’ll let us get blown away,” Harry says. “Me and Liam.”

“You won’t get blown away Harold,” Louis says. “Liam’d save you. Wouldn’t you Liam?”

Liam nods and starts studying his feet, the tips of his ears pink.

“So there you go then,” Louis says, pushing at him a little. “Go brave the wind and buy Harold a drink whilst I lug this one upstairs and have a kip. I’ll even take your bags up.”

“Are you sure you’re taking him upstairs for just a kip?” Harry asks, the smirky bastard, and if Louis could make something _other_ than these lovely choking sounds he’d...he would. He absolutely would.

Which is why he is _eternally_ grateful when Nick leaves his side and starts shooing Harry and Liam back in the direction of the door, saying, “You lads have a nice time. Call if you’re going to be back late. Bye bye now.”

He ushers them through and waves at them again before shutting the door behind himself, turning around, and sending up a puff of air that disturbs some of the hair that’d settled on his forehead.

“Nosy one isn’t he?” he says, peeling himself off of the door and coming forward, picking up Harry’s bag along with his own, and starting towards the stairs.

“Yeah,” Louis says, well, exhales really, grabbing Liam’s bag and following Nick up the narrow staircase.

“Think he’s just happy though,” Nick says, looking back at Louis over his shoulder. “Did comment the other day that he’s glad I’ve stopped whinging on about getting a cat.” 

“Why would you get a cat?” Louis asks, tugging a bit of hair down over his still-burning forehead. He needs to get this damn beanie of Harry’s off. That’s it. Except his hair would probably look even more ridiculous with it off, so maybe he’ll just leave it where it is. “Thought Harold said you were allergic.”

“Am allergic,” Nick says, stopping just outside what must be their room since he’s soon opening a door and stepping through behind Louis. “And it’s a long story.”

“I like long stories,” Louis says absently, sitting down his and Liam’s bags and surveying the room. It’s got a double bed shoved against one wall, one set of chest of drawers, and two single beds against the wall opposite the door.

He’s not mainly focusing on the double bed though. Nope, not him.

“You wouldn’t like this one,” Nick says, and Louis can hear him dropping the bags he’d been holding. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see him studying the double bed as well, his hands on his hips and chewing a bit at his bottom lip.

 _Lip Balm_ , Louis thinks, making a mental note to buy him some. It’s just, it’d be a shame if anything happened to those lips. And they’re in Salisbury and Louis did promise Nick that he’d get him something in Salisbury. He’s not sure if lip balm is the _best_ thing, but maybe it can be the fallback if the best thing doesn’t present itself before they leave in the morning. 

“Don’t think I would.” Louis is sure he wouldn’t actually, because he’s got a sneaking suspicion that it involves Nick being unhappy about something and that’s not ever allowed.

"And besides," he adds, "think I'd rather have a dog."

Fuck, Louis did not just say that.

Which is why he's quick to say, stammer really, "I mean, if it were me, and not now. Be rubbish at caring for a pet right now, but if I got one later I'd be getting a dog, I think."

He’s pretty sure he can see Nick blinking at him out of the corner of his eye - since he’s certainly _not_ turning round to actually _face_ him just yet - and he thinks Nick’s mouth’s hanging open just a bit, but again, not looking.

Except he finally does when he hears Nick say, “Yeah, same.” Nick’s got his hand in his hair, and he’s gone back to studying the bed. “Be good to have a pet I’m not allergic to.”

“Still could mess up and get a dog that’s allergic to people though,” Louis says, feeling something a lot like relief, thinking _fuck it_ and collapsing face-first on the bed. He really is so very tired, and if he’s going to commit to being an idiot, which, he might as well at this point, he’d quite fancy some rest first.

“Didn’t know dogs could be allergic to people,” he hears Nick say and he feels the bed dip a little as Nick takes a seat on it.

“It’s true,” Louis says, rolling over onto his side and angling himself so he can see Nick better. “Have a mate back home who had this dog and it had all sorts of problems and they finally took it to the vet to do all these tests and it came back that the dog was allergic to about everything.”

“Including people,” Nick says, twisting around and propping himself up on one hand. It makes his waist look tiny and his shoulders actually a bit broad in comparison, and while Louis isn’t really hung up on any one specific body type, he thinks he likes it. Wants to touch it, touch _Nick_ , anyway. 

“Including people,” Louis repeats, patting a space beside him and shuffling back so Nick can lay down without hanging halfway off the bed. He hears a couple of _thumps_ that’ve got to be Nick kicking off his boots, and right, he probably ought to be getting his own shoes off, which he does, not really caring where they land or where he sends Harry’s beanie sailing after them. He’s keeping his coat on though, because that’s warm, and he can’t really be arsed to get up, take it off, and climb under the duvet.

Doesn’t really want to climb under the duvet. Might save that panic attack for this evening, thanks.

So he jams a pillow between his arm and his head and stays there on his side - even though he’s never been able to fall asleep on his side, despite how he wakes up that way every morning - and blows at Nick’s hair where it’s close to his own nose.

Nick laughs and tilts his head back, and his face is every bit as nice upside-down.

Louis crosses his eyes and sticks his tongue out at him.

Nick laughs some more and bites his lip.

“Have to tell you something,” he says, his cheeks ever so slightly dusted with pink.

“Okay,” Louis says, his heart having kicked up a fuss in his ears and at the same time thumping away in his chest.

He thinks Nick can probably hear it, the room’s so quiet, nothing but the sound of rain outside.

He knows his cheeks are every bit as pink, maybe even approaching red.

“Want you to know that I don’t, like, expect anything,” Nick says, eyes searching Louis’s face.

“Expect anything?”

At least Louis’s heart’s stopped pounding so.

Nick nods, still upside-down. “If you’re not ready to...do things, I’m not going to push you. I just thought you should know that I’m fine with waiting.”

Oh.

Jesus fucking Christ _oh_.

“It’s not that…,”he starts and then stops, really unsure of where he was even headed because it certainly wasn’t going to be _I think I am ready but I’m also terrified of fucking something up that really matters to me. I'm fucking terrified that you will actually_ see _me_. “How did you…?”

“Been thinking about it a lot today,” Nick says, which, of course he has, because Louis has been _nothing but ridiculous all fucking day_. “About how you freeze up and go somewhere else, usually on account of the innuendo-type stuff, and I thought you might not be ready, so I just want you to know we don’t have to do anything until you want to.”

“What if I don’t ever want to?”

Not that Louis really thinks he’s ever going to _not_ want to - it’s _Nicholas_ for crying out loud and he _does_ want to, he really does - but he thinks he might ought to be hedging his bets.

“Then we won’t,” Nick says, with a bit of a shrug, lacing his fingers together and resting his hands on his chest.

“And you’d really be alright with that?”

Louis doesn’t really see why he would be. Doesn’t see why Nick _should_ be.

“Yeah,” Nick says, steepling his thumbs and tilting his chin back down so he’s facing the ceiling. “Sorry. Was starting to get a cramp. But yeah, we don’t ever have to do anything if you don’t want to. It’s okay.”

 _It’s okay_.

Louis thinks about that as he’s re-positioning himself, turning about and his head landing with a tiny thump on Nick’s chest, sliding his hand under Nick’s neck to massage at it as best he can.

“That better?” he asks, chiefly to Nick’s chin.

He sees Nick nod, and so he keeps going until he thinks his _hand’s_ going to be the one getting the cramp.

“I do want to,” he says eventually, starting to drift a bit. Nick’s got on another one of his check shirts, and it’s been washed so often that the red’s almost faded to pink, but it’s so _soft_ and his chest is so _comfortable_ that, coupled with the rain outside, Louis thinks it really won’t be long before he actually is asleep. “I don’t know when, but I do want to. Just so you know.”

“Okay,” Nick says, putting a hand over his mouth to stifle a yawn and moving the other one up along Louis’s arm to grip at his shoulder before settling it right above Louis’s waist. “But this is alright?”

Louis closes his eyes and nods into Nick’s shirt. When he’s thinking straight again, he’s probably going to demand that Nick not wear anything else. “And the kissing,” he says, with a bit of a slur to it. “Kissing’s more than alright, so we need to do lots of that.”

Nick huffs out a bit of a laugh. “Can put it on the list.”

Louis smiles and turns his face a bit more into Nick’s chest.

“Put it at the top.”

~*~

“We’ve been over it a million times, though. You _can’t_ compare Ledger and Nicholson, because they’re, like, in two completely different kinds of films.”

Oh good.

Looks Liam and Harry are back.

“If you two are just gonna argue again about the Batman films you can do it outside. Some of us are trying to sleep.”

“Really,” he hears Nick say. “Rude.”

“Not rude,” Harry says, and Liam chimes in with a “Yeah. We even brought you back some tea.”

_Tea?_

“You better not be lying to me Liam,” Louis says, begrudgingly sitting up and rubbing at his eyes.

“When have I ever?” Liam asks, all offended, and Louis can think of a time - thanks _Charles_ \- but he isn’t sure as hell isn’t bringing that up. Especially not _here_ and _now_.

“You’re right, you’re right,” he says instead, holding out his hand for his cuppa, taking it and immediately curling it in towards his chest. So warm. Not Nick’s check shirt warm - and Louis thinks he might just steal that for himself instead of making Nick wear it all the time - but it is warm, and it’s _tea_.

“Do I get tea?” Nick asks, sitting up himself and hooking a chin over Louis’s shoulder.

And oh, does Louis like that. He likes that a lot.

“You get coffee,” Harry says, handing him a takeaway cup of his own.

“Cheers,” Nick says, taking it but still not moving his head. Louis really thinks he might not let him. “See Louis, they do love us.”

Louis laughs, nudges Nick’s head with his own, and takes a sip of his tea, pleased that whoever made it put just the right amount of milk in. He suspects Liam. “Least they could do actually since they came in here and woke us up.” 

“We were gone for, like, over an hour,” Harry says, dropping down onto the single bed closest to them. “Plenty of time for you two to...sleep or whatever it was you were doing.”

“Were sleeping thanks,” Louis says, taking another sip of his tea to hide his flaming face.

Nick chimes in with a “Yeah. Thought we’d save the snogging and all for tonight when you two are trapped in here with us.”

The room gets deathly quiet in an instant.

Louis has to clap a hand over his face to keep from laughing and spraying tea everywhere.

It’s just, it’s _perfect_ , the looks on Harry’s and Liam’s faces.

If Louis didn’t already love Nick just the tiniest little bit, for an ever growing number of reasons now it seems, he thinks he would just for that alone.

“I mean,” he says, swallowing down his tea and turning to face Nick. Nick with his own cheeks all rosy-red. “I do believe they’ve been wanting a show Nicholas. Be a shame to let them down, don’t you think?”

“Absolutely,” Nick says, taking a sip of his coffee, swallowing, and adding, “Think we ought to make it a big one, yeah? Since we’ve kept them waiting so long.”

“Very sloppy yeah,” Louis says, and if Nick’s face keeps looking like that, he really thinks he might not want to wait until this evening. “Lots of spit sounds and smacking sounds.”

“Of course,” Nick says, and he’s cut off by Harry’s very loud “OKAY” and Liam’s very quiet “Please can we talk about something else?”

“Of course we can talk about something else Liam,” Louis says, pressing the quickest of kisses to the corner of Nick’s mouth and pulling away. It’s just, Nick’s still got his face looking like that, and Louis is only human after all. “We can talk about where you two ended up for a start."

“Just down at the restaurant really,” Liam says, sitting down on the bed opposite Harry’s and fingering the duvet a bit. “Decided we didn’t much fancy going back out in all that nastiness, so we ended up going down to the restaurant and then just wandering around a bit, seeing what all this place has.”

“Find anything interesting?” Louis asks, polishing off the rest of his tea and sitting the cup atop the chest of drawers, leaning back into Nick’s shoulder.

“Laundry room,” Harry says, falling over onto his back and stretching out his arms and legs. “You and Nick can get your clothes washed. From earlier.”

“Big night here in Salisbury then,” Louis says, because _date night_ is a bit too much, even if nothing ever sounded better.

“Don’t know,” Nick puts in, and Louis can see him looking down and fiddling with the lid on his coffee cup. “Might could go see about renting some candles or a strobe light or summat when I go back to rent out the towels in a bit. Make it a big to-do, the washing. Party of the Century in the YHA Salisbury.”

“Except Harry and Liam can’t come,” Louis says, thinking _get the candles, get the candles, get the candles_. “Sorry lads,” he tells them, “‘Fraid you can’t come unless you’ve got washing to do. Strict rules at this party, see?”

“What if I brought a sock?” Liam asks.

“Is it a dirty sock?” Louis returns.

“Could be,” Liam says, returning his attention back to the duvet. “Not finished wearing it yet.”

“Suppose if it’s dirty it’s alright,” Louis says, tamping down the stupid sinking feeling in his chest. _He’s_ stupid, because really, him and Nick and candles on the tumble dryer? What even is his brain?

“Should just give it to him to wash,” Harry says, and Louis had been expecting him to say something, but it wasn’t quite that. “Since you’re always washing his things.”

“Isn’t _always_ Harold,” Louis says, telegraphing his thanks at him as best he can. “It’s just we _typically_ seem to be doing our washing at the same time so it makes sense to combine them is all.”

“That mean I can start bringing mine over?” Nick asks, twisting a bit and resting his head on Louis’s shoulder again, and yes, Louis really does like that very much, especially if it’s going to have him reclining ever so slightly against Nick’s chest. “Might start feeling left out if you three have your little washing parties and I’m not invited, especially if I’m coordinating the do this evening.”

Harry snorts. “Isn’t a washing party so much as it’s Liam getting everyone’s clothes clean.”

“But I don’t mind getting everyone’s clothes clean,” Liam says. “Because Louis does the washing-up and you do most of the tidying, so it all works out.”

“So what’d be my job?” Nick asks. “If I did start bringing my washing over. Wouldn’t be fair, would it, me bringing my dirty socks over, expecting you to wash them, and not doing anything in return.”

“I like your ridiculous socks,” Louis says, freezing when everything suddenly stills and he realises he’s just said that out loud. Which, it’s not that it’s untrue or that he’s even embarrassed - okay he is a bit red - but he hadn’t really intended it to be for anyone to actually _hear_. Anyone that wasn’t Nick at any rate.

The silence drags until Liam coughs and starts picking at a loose thread in the duvet, and Harry very abruptly gets interested in his mobile, saying, “Think I want to Instagram that light fixture, Liam.”

“I, um, I think that’s a great idea,” Liam says, clearing his throat.

“The one in the restaurant,” Harry says, sitting up and finger-combing his hair, clambering out of bed and heading toward the door.

“I’ll help you pick a filter,” Liam says, right on his heels.

They’re probably halfway across the room when Louis feels Nick turn in their direction and say, “Think you lads better get used to it. I like his ridiculous socks too.”

_Really?_

“Do you?” he asks, tilting his head back, getting a nice view of Nick’s neck and the curve of his jaw.

Nick turns and Louis thinks he must get a mouthful of Louis’s hair because the sound that comes out is of more of a “Yuh” followed by a bit of sputtering than an actual yes.

But Louis is sure it was meant be a yes, what with the “y” sound and all.

Especially since Nick eventually follows it up with, once he’s got his mouth clear, “Yeah, I mean, they’re kinda loud aren’t they, some of them? But they’re...they’re something I like a lot. Yeah.”

Louis hopes Nick isn’t just talking about his socks.

"Don't know Nicholas," he says, peeking over Nick’s folded legs and raising an eyebrow at his stripey green and orange socks that match absolutely nothing else he's got on. Louis isn’t even sure _what_ they’d match. "Think I'm well into those. Might even like them better than my own."

Louis is definitely not talking about socks.

Well, not completely not about socks, since it is an impressive pair, even though there's absolutely no way he’d ever wear them.

He'll watch Nick wear them though. Yes, that’s it.

Them and the check shirts Louis decides _not_ to steal.

And for once he isn’t even bothered by the idea that he might not allow Nick his trousers.

Except, he might need to settle down just a bit. Draw it back a little before his brain remembers that it likes panicking about that sort of thing and he gets all weird again.

Louis thinks he’s ready for that drink now.

Yes, he absolutely is.

So he asks, flicking his fringe out of his eyes, "You two happen to see when they started with the drinks? Think I'm feeling a bit parched after that tea."

Liam just looks at him sort of quizzically, and Harry’s looking at his mobile, but Nick’s nodding and sliding down the bed to put his boots back on.

"Think I am too," he says, pausing whilst Louis takes his coffee cup off him and sets it on the chest of drawers beside his own empty tea cup, nudging them close together because he is an absolute sappy fool. “And I’m meant to be renting towels and candles and whatnot so might need to be getting on with that before I get distracted and forget.”

“I’ll go with you,” Louis says, and he hadn’t really meant to volunteer himself at all, but it’s done, it’s... _whatever_ , they’ll get their towels and their candles and whatever else, and then Louis can have himself a drink or two to clear the idiocy out of his head.

He’ll probably need a million drinks to get all of it out, but he will start with one or two.

“Alright,” Nick says, shrugging on his coat whilst Louis is putting on his shoes and looking around to see where Harry’s beanie has got itself to, finding it eventually underneath Harry’s bed of all places and jamming it down over his still rather messy hair.

“We’ll get the table then,” Harry says, already opening the door and seeing Liam through.

“Get us one by the window,” Louis says, calling after them, watching as Harry waves a hand at him on his way out.

“Fancy a view do you?” Nick asks, coming over to Louis and holding out a hand to help him up off the floor.

“Can pretend I’m in a monsoon or something,” Louis says, relieved and warm, still not letting go of Nick’s hand. Doesn’t really have much intention of letting it go at all actually.

“Or we can see if a house flies by,” Nick says, obediently turning about and letting Louis guide him toward the door, shutting it behind them once they’re through.

“Might even get picked up and land _in_ Kansas for a change,” Louis says, and Nick laughs.

“Think I could work the ruby slippers,” he says, and Louis, he believes him and tells him so.

Because if anyone’s going to be wearing ruby slippers, it’s probably going to be his Nicholas, and it might have only been a couple of weeks since they’d started their...thing, and it’s still a bit terrifying and uncertain, but Louis is going to let himself think of Nick as his in the meantime.

He will, and when Nick squeezes his hand back as they’re going down the stairs, Louis decides to take it to mean he just might feel the same way about him, that Louis is _his_.

 _But you are_ , he thinks, hiding a smile behind a cough as he’s following Nick to the rental desk.

 _You absolutely are_.

~*~

There aren’t any candles for rent.

Louis is rather disappointed. 

He gets it, he does, but still, it's disappointing.

Although Nick manages to get him a fluffy blue towel instead of the thin green one he'd been handed, and Louis knows it’s dumb, but it still feels nice all the same.

Except he still needs to go get Nick something, but he can see rain and wind through the window, and he really doesn't fancy going out in it.

"Don't suppose..." he says, stopping short, not even really sure what he was going to be asking.

"Don't suppose?" Nick echoes, halting beside him on the steps as they’re carrying the towels back up to their room.

And Louis has got to say _something_ , lest he look even more ridiculous, as if that’s possible given his day today, so he finishes with a very strange-sounding "Don't suppose you know if there's a book shop nearby, do you?"

Except, a book shop might work. He might could find Nick a book to read if he’s able to wander about a book shop for a bit.

"Not sure," Nick says, resuming their climb. "Can check when we're back in the room if you like."

"It’s alright," Louis says, adjusting his grip on his towel. "I'll do it. Just thought you might know of one."

"Why'd you think that?" Nick asks, trying to get their door open with his arms full and failing at it a couple of times until Louis steps in and gets it for him.

Louis shrugs and follows him inside. He isn’t telling Nick the real reason after all. "Just did, that's all."

"Oh," Nick says, setting the towels down on the double bed and frowning a bit at them. "Just know music shops really. Don't know an awful lot about books."

"But Harry..." Louis says, clapping a hand over his mouth before he can finish that sentence.

The colour drains out of Nick’s face, and Louis can actually see him swallow. "Harry?"

It sounds ever so slightly choked. 

"He, um," Louis says, clenching his towel closer against his body and cursing his big mouth. "He's...all out of Bukowski, and I...thought I'd go try and find him some maybe because you know how he gets if he's been travelling for a while and hasn't got anything to read."

"He does get very grumpy," Nick says, his face relaxing some. "Went to a festival up in Glasgow last spring with him, and he'd forgotten to bring a book, and he was such a terror about it that I almost ditched him in Bristol."

"That’s sudden."

"I _know_ ," Nick says, smiling wide and putting his hand in his hair. "Figured he’d at least make into The Midlands proper before I had to threaten him with bodily harm."

"You did not," Louis says, setting his towel down atop Nick’s stack and shoving his hands in his pockets.

"I did so," Nick says, mirroring him. "Told him I'd cut off all his hair."

Louis laughs, feels some of the pressure on his chest lift. "That’s kind of brutal Nicholas."

Nick shrugs. "He was brutally annoying about it. And also, I wouldn't have really cut off his hair. Might have, you know, just waved some scissors in his general direction or something."

"Does Harry know that?"

"He should by now I'd hope."

"You threaten his hair often then?"

“Only when he needs it.”

“Surprised you didn’t do it earlier.”

Nick shrugs again, gives him a little smile. “You had it well in hand, love. Figured I’d step in if you needed it.”

Louis’s cheeks heat and he grins down at his shoes before looking back up at Nick. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Nick says, biting his lip and looking down at his own feet, getting a hand out of his pocket and into his hair again, tugging a bit at it.

And that’s...really just not fair.

Louis wants so _badly_ to be tugging at Nick’s hair - it’s such glorious hair really, probably even better than Harry’s in his opinion - so he strides forward and grabs onto Nick’s arm, lowering it and ignoring Nick’s confused, flushed face, and sets to trying to arrange Nick’s nice, thick hair himself.

“Think you’re going to have to wash this, love,” he says, quietly, because it’s raining, and it’s important to be quiet when it’s raining, as he’s directing the strands as best he can.

And they can call each other _love_. That’s alright, isn’t it? If they’re both doing it?

Doesn’t have to mean much does it?

Except, Louis knows it does.

At least it does for him.

”Do need to be presentable for Supper Club," Nick says, closing his eyes and tilting his head down, and Louis isn’t going to pretend that it doesn’t make things easier on his wrist.

He laughs and pats at Nick’s hair some more. “Sure you’ll charm all of them once we get your hair sorted. Won’t be able to get out of Salisbury they’ll be hanging on to you so.”

Nick huffs out a laugh, his eyes still shut as he’s turning a bit more into Louis’s hand that’s dropped from Nick’s hair to his face. “Imagine you’ll fight them all off,” he says, and Louis knows he would.

Says so and then thinks he can actually feel Nick’s cheek heat.

Or maybe it’s just Louis’s hand - it’s probably definitely Louis’s hand - but Nick’s still got his eyes closed, and Louis decides that now’s as good as any other time to pull him into a kiss, which, that’s what he does, turns Nick’s head a bit so the angle won’t be too off and presses their lips together, just a touch before he pulls away and loops his arm tightly around Nick’s neck, getting him almost in a headlock and guiding him away from the bed.

"Changed my mind," he says. "Going back out now."

Nick laughs and puts his arm around Louis’s waist, patting at his hip and falling into step. "Long as you're alright being seen with me and my fantastic hair."

"Mine's horrible under this beanie," Louis admits, tugging it down. "So I'd say we're a match really."

"Smashing," Nick says, but he sounds pleased and he goes along easily when Louis walks them back outside.

~*~

Supper Club's a rather dull affair, really. It’s just them, a middle-aged couple from Italy, and a guy named Tony from Surrey with a neckbeard and a faux-vintage Rolling Stones tee on under his cardigan.

Louis hates him on sight.

And also on principle.

And then not so much on principle once he discovers that Tony from Surrey has personal space issues, specifically, issues with staying out of Harry’s personal space, not that Louis is expecting Harry to actually do anything to push him off, but Louis can _feel_ Liam being sad, and that’s....that's just not right.

Never been right, and he’s about to tell this guy to fuck off already when Harry _finally_ moves, squeezing right into Liam’s side and wedging his arm underneath Liam’s until Liam shifts his, almost linking them, and gives Tony from Surrey his very best glare.

Luckily for him, Tony from Surrey is quick on the uptake, sliding right over to Bartolomeo and Lucia and proceeding to mangle some Italian at them, which, good riddance, and Louis thinks he hears Harry whisper out something that sounds very much like a _thank you_.

But it really doesn't matter what Harry’s just said, Louis thinks, because Liam’s not looking sad at all now, and Harry’s made no sign of moving away, so everything’s great, really.

Except, he's just remembered that he’s got washing to do, and as much as he’d been ridiculously excited about his and Nick’s washing...thing earlier, now that he’s actually got to do it, he'd really rather not. It'd be different, he supposes, if the weather was cooperating, if he could see the fucking _sun_ , but it’s still as rainy and as windy as it had been when they'd arrived, judging by the way the leaves are being blown about and end up plastered to the window, sticking there until the wind peels them off again.

"Nasty out isn't it?" Liam says, and out of the corner of his eye, Louis can see him prop his elbow on the table and rest his chin on his hand, staring out the window like Louis had done. 

Louis hums in agreement and goes back to the window himself, mirroring Liam’s pose.

"I wanted to see Stonehenge," he hears Liam say after a second or two. "Supposed to be nearby, and I've never seen it."

"Same here," Louis says.

"Don't think any of us have seen it, have we?" he hears Nick ask.

"I haven't," Harry puts in, and Louis turns his head to look at him first and then at Nick.

"Think we should still try to go then?" he asks. "Rain be damned, that sort of thing?"

"You have to book it," Liam says, sounding a little smushed with his cheek stuffed even further into his hand, almost like he's sinking. "I checked."

"Hang that Liam," Louis says, prodding at his knees with his foot to get him to stop what's starting to look an awful lot like brooding again "I think we should go, see if we can get in at least."

"Don't think it'd hurt to try," Nick says, and _yes_.

"Harold?" Louis asks, looking at him and adding after he sees his half-shrug, half-nod, "Looks like you’re outnumbered Payno." He laughs when he hears Liam’s sigh. "Oh Liam don't be so upset," he says, reaching over and patting Liam’s arm.

"It'll be an adventure."

~*~

As far as adventures go, it's really the worst.

"I _told_ you you had to book it," Liam says, very grumpily from the backseat. 

"You did say that, yes," Louis says, taking his hands off the steering wheel and unfastening his seatbelt, grabbing onto the door handle and pushing the door open.

"Where are you going?" Liam asks.

"Going to see Stonehenge Liam," Louis says, wincing when the first raindrops hit his face and slamming the Renault’s door shut. He pulls his hood up and jams his hands into his pockets and starts moving as best he can through the wind to where he remembers Stonehenge being. 

He hasn't got terribly far when he hears a fast series of squelching sounds that he hopes isn’t someone coming up to murder him quickly in the rain and in the dark.

He actually _screams_ when whoever it is grabs him by the elbow and pulls him to a stop.

“Oh my god Lou I am so sorry,” he hears Nick, _Nick_ , say, his voice breathless and hushed as he lets go of Louis’s arm. “I didn’t think…”

“S’alright,” Louis says, breathless himself and unable to speak very loudly on account of his heart rabbiting away in his throat. “‘S just you. S’alright.”

He’d probably be more convincing if his voice wasn’t also shaking. 

Shaking like his hands and his knees.

“Don’t think it is alright,” Nick says, unevenly, and Louis can’t think, really, because his mind’s...behind plastic, yes, that’s it, behind a cling film of rainwater, and there’s a dull buzzing in his ears.

And a voice that sounds very much like his own, only slower now, saying, “It’ll be fine Nicholas. Don’t you worry. Let’s go look at some rocks.”

“Louis…”

“ _Please_ Nicholas,” he says, groping around in the dark and behind the fastly-disappearing film until he catches on a bit of fabric and holds it tightly. “Can we please just go look at the damn rocks?”

A beat of silence, two beats, three, and then, “Of course we can.”

Louis spends the rest of the walk tucked into Nick’s side.

~*~

Stonehenge is...breathtaking.

 _Literally_ breathtaking.

“I read about it in _Tess_ ,” Louis says, still tucked into Nick’s side and his arms wrapped around Nick’s waist. “She gave herself up here.”

Louis could cry.

Poor dear Tess.

“Who did?”

“Tess,” Louis says, willing it all back down because he _isn’t_ going to cry, not matter how much he’d like to, no matter how much the world’s rushed back in for good this time, leaving him shivering and cold and aware of everything to the point that it’s _all too much_. And there’s Stonehenge, where _Tess just gave up_ , and he’s always hated Hardy, always wanted to punch him good in the face if only for poor dear Tess and it’s _all too much_. “She just...she gave up and they took her away and she died.”

“Who’s Tess?”

Nick’s arm gets tighter around his shoulders.

“She died,” is all Louis says and very faintly, letting the silence creep in, letting rainwater fill his ears.

“Lou?”

Nick sounds horribly uncertain and a bit on edge.

Louis doesn’t blame him, feels prickles all over, feels bright lights like spotlights behind his eyes, and the rain is so cold.

But Nick, he is warm and still here, and Louis buries his face in his chest.

“I’m so sorry,” he says, eventually, turning his head so Nick can hear him clearly. “I didn’t mean to get weird.”

Nick huffs out a laugh and pulls him closer, making it so Louis can very clearly hear how his heart’s pounding away in his chest.

He hates it.

Hates how he made Nick _afraid_ , hates the creeping suspicion that he ought to be holding on tight because soon he’s going to be pushed away.

“Wasn’t too weird,” Nick says, resting his chin atop Louis’s head, so warm despite the chill in the air. Nick is the _soul_ of warmth. “Although I think I might be needing notes or summat to keep up with you."

“I can write you notes,” Louis says, because he will.

Might even be a good way to slip in a _certain_ note.

Eventually.

Except, that’s when he hits on it.

_Chamber Music._

“We need to find a bookshop,” he says, pulling back and grabbing onto Nick’s coat. “I just...we need to find a bookshop.”

“Okay,” Nick says, uncertain again, and Louis can’t see his face as well as he’d like.

_Rain has fallen all the day._

_O come among the laden trees:_

_The leaves lie thick upon the way_

_Of memories._

Louis needs to _go_ , his veins positively _thrumming_ with it.

_Staying a little by the way_

_Of memories shall we depart._

_Come, my beloved, where I may_

_Speak to your heart._

Jesus fucking Christ Louis needs to go.

Go find a Smith’s and hope it carries _Chamber Music_ so he can get it and give it to Nick _with his notes_ , god his notes, and maybe Nick will...understand.

_I was a lonely boy, walking about by myself at night and thinking that one day a girl would love me._

Nick might still leave him, but he’d _understand_. 

Louis wants so much for him to understand, even if the only way he’s got of expressing it is through books and notes scribbled in the margins.

He has to laugh.

He’s always wanted his own marginalia.

Always, always wanted it, and it shouldn’t be a surprise, really, that this appears to be his sort of marginalia, but it is.

It is, but it’s nice, and he really doesn’t think Nick’d be unkind about it.

At least not to his face.

“What’s so funny?” Nick asks, and he’s still sounding a bit uncertain, but it’s not quite like it was just a moment ago.

“It’s nothing really,” Louis says, loosening his grip and patting at Nick’s hip. “Just need you to find me a Smith’s and post haste.”

“Might can find you a Smith’s,” Nick says, his voice almost like it’s got a smile to it.

Louis _hopes_ his voice has got a smile to it.

“Be getting on with it then,” he says, letting Nick guide him back to the car.

~*~

Every. Single. Bookshop. Closes. At. Half-Five.

It’s a Salisbury-wide phenomenon, it seems, and Louis has never been so angry at his inability to get his hands on a book as he is now.

Nevermind that he’s got a perfectly serviceable copy of _Chamber Music_ buried somewhere at his mum’s house. 

He’d just wanted so badly to get Nick a copy of his own.

They could compare if Nick had a copy of his own.

"Do they think people don’t want to read after dark?" he says, slamming his door shut, crossing his arms, and slouching down in his seat as Nick starts the car.

"Maybe they're all too busy doing their washing," Nick says, getting them back on the road. "Big washing town, Salisbury."

He hears Liam laugh from the backseat and then Harry’s asking if Nick’s going to make it proper romantic for when he and Louis are doing their own washing later.

“Don’t think that’s any of your business, _Harold_ ,” Nick says, a bit tartly, taking his hand off the gearshift and lightly pressing his knuckles into Louis’s shoulder before pulling it back.

Harry cackles and Louis can feel him pushing his knee against the back of his seat. He reaches around as best he can and thumps him, which really only sets Harry off even more.

"You're the worst," he says. "No idea what any of us see in you."

"His hair’s quite nice," Liam puts in.

There’s a beat of silence and then a very pleased "Thank you Liam."

"Bit like Rapunzel, innit?" Liam says, and Louis is _not_ turning around at that. Doesn’t need to really, since he can actually _feel_ Harry preening.

But he will look at Nick and his damp hair, biting at his lip and thinking about tangling his fingers in it because it's so much better than Harry’s truly no matter what Liam thinks.

And he’d do it too, if not for how ridiculous he’s still feeling after that...episode at Stonehenge.

He shoves his hands under his thighs instead.

~*~

"I actually _hate_ doing the washing," he's grumbling to Nick later as they’re both clomping back down the stairs with entirely too many damp clothes in their arms, Harry having shoved his and Liam’s things at them and then pushed them right out the door, laughing loudly as he’d shut it.

"So you do manage to make Liam do it for you then?" Nick asks, a bit teasingly.

"It isn’t like he minds. He said."

"He did," Nick says, and out of the corner of his eye Louis can see him nod. "Just, he made it sound like you had a, I dunno, arrangement or summat."

"We do have an arrangement," Louis says, rounding the corner and nearly clipping the wall. "Harry just likes to forget it isn’t official."

He sees Nick crack a smile. "All that kale must be going to his brain."

Louis laughs. "I think you may be right. Might have to see if we can get a chip or two in him for his own mental health."

"Chips and gravy?" Nick asks, smile growing wider.

"Don't know about that so much," Louis says, flushed as he’s following Nick into the laundry room. "Big fan of chips and gravy. Might steal them for myself."

"Even if Liam got him the chips and gravy?" Nick asks, setting his washing down and beginning to sort it. Which, admittedly, isn’t something Louis had planned on doing, but he supposes he will this once.

"Absolutely," he says, rather grateful that the lot of them tend to mostly wear dark colours, since it makes his sorting easier. "Shameless gravy thief, me."

"You did make quick work of mine," Nick says, flicking a striped sock at him.

"I'm a growing boy Nicholas," Louis says, flicking the sock back at him.

"Is that what you call it?" Nick asks, flicking a different sock at him. Louis ducks, really not keen on getting Harry’s stinky sock in his face, then straightens up and proceeds to toss as many of his and Liam's things at Nick as possible, laughing and hiding himself behind a washer when Nick drops the affronted look and starts throwing his and Harry's clothes at _him_.

"Your throwing is weak Nicholas!" he shouts, picking up a shirt that’s a very familiar faded red, about to pitch it too when he thinks better of it and holds it aloft, saying, "Keeping this one as a trophy I am!"

"Well that isn't very fair," Nick says, his voice close, and when Louis looks up he sees him leaned over the washer and looking down on him. "That one's my favourite."

"My favourite now I think."

"Do you?" Nick’s cheeks are pink, and he looks so very pleased.

"Might," Louis says, a bit faint on account of how Nick’s towering over him like _that_ , and it ought to be a little frightening, really, but somehow it just...isn't.

"Might let you keep it then," Nick says, his face still flushed as he’s lowering himself down onto the washer proper, crossing his arms, and resting his chin on them.

Louis snorts out a laugh and bats at Nick’s face with one of the shirtsleeves. "I'm keeping it anyway. But you can have one of mine as a compromise if you like."

"So generous," Nick says, grinning at him.

"I am that," Louis says, nodding and continuing to pat at Nick's very nice face, smiling when he shuts his eyes and lets Louis get a good, nice look at his insanely long eyelashes. 

He reaches up and runs a thumb over them, not missing the way the smile doesn’t drop off Nick's face.

Not missing how it turns into something softer, and Louis, he likes that so, so much.

"Might even let you have my Simple Plan shirt," he says after a moment, and he means it too.

Nick huffs out a laugh, his eyes still closed. "Do need a shirt that says 'Simple Plan' on it."

"This one doesn't though," Louis says, moving his hand back and into his lap when Nick opens his eyes. "It’s a Role Model one from that line they put out. Kinda old and thin, really, but you can have it if you want."

"Does it actually say 'Role Model' on the front?" Nick asks, a bit drowsily, Louis thinks, going so far as to shut his eyes again after Louis nods. "Definitely need that then."

"Give it to you soon as we get back," Louis says, patting at Nick’s hair now, watching as his face settles into something almost like sleep. "You can go back up," he adds, still moving his hand about in Nick’s hair. "Can do the washing myself."

"You said you hate doing the washing."

Louis shrugs even though Nick's still got his eyes closed and can't see. "Got my mobile. Sure I can amuse myself somehow."

Maybe he can find an online bookstore and order something. There’s a thought.

"Nah, it's alright," Nick says, straightening up. "Rather stay down here with you. Who knows what Harry and Liam are doing up there?"

"Revision I'm sure," Louis says, taking Nick’s hand when he offers it and pulling himself upright.

"Naked revision."

"He does like doing things naked, our Harold. Sure that includes his revising."

"You don’t know?" Nick asks, picking the strewn clothes up off the floor and resorting all of them into two large piles. "Thought you'd know that, living with him and all."

Louis shrugs, more than content to let Nick do most of the work, although he does hand over the washing powder when asked. "Tends to keep it more to his room now. Ever since the...Liam...thing started a couple of weeks ago."

"That makes sense," Nick says, commandeering another washer and placing the second pile of washing into that. "If he’s uncertain like you said."

"Don't think he's so uncertain anymore though," Louis says, joining Nick where he’s just had a seat on a small sofa pushed up against the wall, leaning into his side and watching the washing spin.

It’s...hypnotic, really.

Which is why he nearly falls over when Nick moves, sending him blinking back awake.

"Soz about that," Nick says, catching him easily and leaning him against the sofa back. "Forgot you'd fallen asleep. Just need to get the washing out."

"Didn’t realise I'd fallen asleep," Louis says, leaning forward and rubbing at his eyes. 

"I am a comfy lad apparently," Nick says, shooting him a grin before turning back to getting the washing into the dryers. "That’s twice today isn't it?"

It is.

"Do you mind?" Louis asks, feeling fidgety and picking at his nails. The last thing he wants is to be considered _dull_ , cast aside because all he wants to do is sleep all the time. 

Been there once before, thanks, and even if he’s not taking the Clonazepam anymore - although he probably should still be taking it and especially _now_ \- he isn’t terribly keen on having _that_ happen again.

Especially if he fancies his Nicholas much, much more than he ever had that pretentious Tristan arsehole.

"'Course not," Nick says, pausing for a bit. "It’s...nice, actually."

Louis breathes out a sigh of relief, feeling something in his chest loosen, and when Nick returns to his seat, Louis curls right into his side, draping his arm across Nick’s waist as Nick’s arm is going about his shoulders. He shuts his eyes and right before he drifts off again, cocooned in so much warmth, he manages to mumble out a _thank you._

It isn’t a thank you for everything, couldn't possibly be, but as Nick’s squeezing his shoulder, Louis thinks it might just be good enough for now.

~*~

He’s awoken again sometime later by someone pulling on his foot, and when he opens his eyes it’s quite a shock to see Harry stood there hovering over him.

"Harold?" he says, mouth dry and the lights entirely too bright in his eyes.

Harry nods and gives his knee a little pat. "Come upstairs Lou," he says. "Get a proper sleep."

"Time is it?" Louis asks, not at all interested in moving, even if it’s just to the bed.

"Just gone midnight," Harry says, moving over to wake Nick next. Behind him Louis can see Liam doing something that looks rather like folding their clothes. 

And, he really probably ought to be doing that, but he’s so comfortable and so inexplicably _tired_ that he just shuts his eyes instead.

"C'mon Lou." 

Harry’s pulling at his arm now, the insistent bastard.

"Geroff," Louis says, burrowing closer into Nick, letting out a whine of disappointment when Nick, the traitor, starts moving.

But then Nick gets his arm about Louis’s waist and is helping him up, and that’s alright.

Especially when Nick keeps his arm about Louis’s waist for the entire trip back to their room, only letting go long enough for Louis to fall completely into bed, shoes and all.


	3. Chapter 3

The sound of birdsong is what wakes him up.

Always with the singing, the birds.

Except, it's almost like that morning he woke up at Nick’s, and when he blinks his eyes open, there's actually a bit of sun beginning to peek through the windows.

He’s still staring at it, watching as the grey seeps slowly out of the room, when he hears a rustling to his right, and, turning his head, he sees that Nick’s rolled over to face him, his eyes still closed, _holy shit eyelashes_ , and his hair falling over his forehead.

Louis rolls over himself, facing Nick, and sets to combing it back and away.

_With a soft tumult of thy hair._

Louis is a silly, ridiculous boy.

 _Thy kiss descending sweeter were_...

Louis’s cheeks heat, and he keeps determinedly working away at sorting Nick’s hair long after it needs it. He isn’t going to be thinking about that niggling little doubt that's popped up, saying how giving Nick a copy of _Chamber Music_ is a terrible idea, that it’s too much, too soon.

Which, it might be, but it feels real, feels perfect, and there’s actually a flat feeling of disappointment that tags along whenever he thinks about _not_ giving Nick the book.

He’s so...confused, and it’s making him cross.

So he just...slides over closer to Nick, loops his arm around Nick’s shoulder to pull him close without waking him up, and works his fingers into Nick’s hair. He shuts his eyes, resting his chin on the top of Nick’s head, and forces himself to _breathe_.

He’s got a good few breaths in when he feels Nick shift, wrapping his arm around Louis’s waist and burying his face in Louis’s chest.

Louis somehow manages to flush and freeze at the same time.

But...then Nick moves his hand up Louis’s back and starts rubbing it and that...that's alright.

Louis smiles, his cheeks and his ears still on fire, and buries his nose in Nick’s hair.

"Didn’t mean to wake you up," he says, almost in a whisper. 

"S'okay," he hears Nick say, just as quietly. "Rather wake up like this."

"As opposed to what?"

Nick shrugs. "Anything, really."

Louis pulls back enough so that he can see Nick’s face, cupping his cheek and watching as his lips curve in a smile.

"Are you sure about that Nicholas?" he asks, a bit dazed by the way Nick’s sleepily blinking up at him. "I mean, what if I decided I wanted to, I dunno, wake you up with a hand job or something?"

Nick’s eyes widen and his cheeks get as red as Louis’s own.

"Is that something you’d actually do?" he eventually asks. 

Louis nods, forcing himself not to look away, not to move away, no matter how hot and itchy he feels.

"Because I thought..." Nick says, trailing off at the end, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion, "you didn’t...that you weren't..."

Somehow, Louis's cheeks get even hotter.

"I..." he says, trying to will _something_ into his dry mouth. "I...I can do it...if...if it’s my idea, I think. If I’m the one...who's in control."

And he’s never really thought about it that way before, but it’s so startlingly true that it almost makes his head spin.

"Is that alright?" he asks, his hand starting to shake as he’s still holding on to Nick’s face. Nick’s face that’s fallen into something that’s either anger or pity. Louis can’t tell which.

"Of course it’s alright," Nick says, almost like he's actually angry, but then he's moving up, so that they're almost nose-to-nose, cupping the back of Louis’s head in one large hand and adding, in a low voice, "Meant what I said. We don't ever have to do anything if you don’t want to. Okay?"

Louis gusts out an "okay" and nods his head.

"Good," Nick says, giving Louis a hint of a smile as his fingers slide into Louis’s hair and ever so lightly begin to scratch and rub at his scalp.

Louis shuts his eyes so he can feel it better.

"Were you alright last night?" he hears Nick ask. 

"Last night?"

"Yeah," Nick says, still moving his hand about in Louis’s hair. "You know, with having to share the bed."

"Think I was too knackered to even notice we'd shared it actually."

"Gee thanks," Nick says, but he definitely looks amused when Louis opens his eyes. "Good to know I'm so memorable in bed."

"Could be memorable for other reasons," Louis says, arching an eyebrow at him. "Like if you kicked or something. Then I'd be pitching you right out."

"Suppose I don’t want to be memorable for that, no," Nick says, getting his hand out of Louis’s hair and smoothing it back down. 

"Yeah because then you'd be Harold," Louis says, catching Nick’s hand before he can rest it anywhere, twining their fingers together, and twisting just enough that their joined hands are lying neatly between them.

Nick laughs. "Don't know if I want to be a Harold. Spend enough time on my hair as it is."

"Not to mention you'd look proper weird with that much hair."

"I would not," Nick says, all indignant. "I'd be lovely and you know it."

"No you wouldn’t," Louis says, shifting enough so that he can poke at the quiff he’d built for Nick earlier as best he can without a hand. "Afraid you're meant for tall hair, love. Suits you better."

"You've never even seen me with flat hair," Nick says, his cheeks pink and a pleased smile on his face.

"Saw it yesterday actually," Louis says, letting go of Nick’s hand and poking at his forehead instead. "Was stuck all over here on account of the rain."

"Did it look bad?" Nick asks, eyes wide and biting at his lip.

"Was the worst," Louis says, smiling down at him. "Made me want to get my hands all in it, it did."

Nick's eyes widen even further before his face splits in a grin, and he starts grabbing at Louis’s hand, pulling it away from his forehead and back down between them.

"You're terrible."

"You love it."

"I might," Nick says, softly, flush back on his cheeks.

"But just a bit, right?" Louis asks, just as softly.

"Only the very slightest bit I promise," Nick says, shutting his eyes as Louis leans in closer, huffing out a laugh when Louis presses their foreheads together. "Most of the time it's dead annoying."

" _You're_ dead annoying," Louis says, pushing their joined hands back into Nick’s stomach.

"Don't act like you don't like it," Nick says, cracking one eye open. "Because I know for a fact that you do."

"Don't know who you've been chatting with, but it’s all lies I'm sure."

"Just some lad," Nick says, opening his other eye. "Very fit. Great hair. Bit on the short side though."

"Oh fuck right off Nicholas," Louis says, so warm and pleased as he’s pressing a kiss to Nick’s lips before he can say anything else that's at best only half-true.

~*~

They’re halfway down the stairs before they realise that neither of them has seen Harry or Liam all morning.

"Where do you think they've got to?" Louis asks, bounding back up the stairs to double-check the beds, both of which turn out to be empty and already made-up.

"No idea," Nick says, stood in the doorway, already getting out his mobile and clicking it on. "See if I can get Harry on the text."

"D'you think they just want down to breakfast already?" Louis asks, scratching at his head.

"Possible," Nick says, finishing off his text and sliding his mobile into his jeans pocket. "Or maybe they went for a jog and didn't bother telling us."

"Don't think they packed their kit though," Louis says, worrying at his bottom lip and following Nick back out of the room.

"Maybe they went running in their pants," Nick says over his shoulder as they’re heading back down the stairs.

"Harry maybe," Louis says, and he can picture it all too well. "Don't think Liam’s the sort, though."

"Unless Harry talked him into it."

"Then he just might," Louis says with a nod. "If it’s Harold."

"Harry'd probably convince him it's the natural way to do it, running in your pants," Nick says, taking Louis’s hand when he offers it at the bottom of the stairs.

"I can hear him now," Louis says, and he can.

Except, when he rounds the corner into the dining area, he can neither see nor actually hear Harry. Or Liam.

"Where the fuck are they?" he asks, pulling Nick along with him as he’s weaving between the empty tables.

"Outside, maybe?" Nick suggests, and it is nice out, so Louis figures they might as well try it, especially since he can’t think of a reason for Harry and Liam to be anywhere else if they're not at breakfast.

Except, once they get outside into the bright, bright sun, there's nothing much to see except the drive they'd walked up the day previous and trees all around.

"Seriously where the fuck are they?" Louis says, whipping out his mobile and pulling up Liam’s contact information as fast as he can, almost dropping his mobile from pressing the call button a little too hard.

It seems to ring forever before it goes to voicemail. 

Louis tries again.

And again.

And again.

He’s seriously considering pitching his mobile at a tree after around the fifth or sixth try.

"No answer?" Nick asks, his own mobile to his ear, probably ringing Harry, no doubt.

Louis shakes his head, trying to will down the rising sense of panic.

It’s just, it isn't like Liam to not answer his phone. Even if he’s angry, which is admittedly not very often, he’s always good for _picking up his goddamn mobile._

"Harry's not answering either," Nick says, and that’s...just even better.

"What the fuck are they _doing_?" 

He's got his hands in his hair and he’s pulling at it when he sees Nick’s eyes get very wide.

"The Renault," Nick says, moving instantly in the direction of the car park.

"You don’t really think they're..." Louis says, catching up to him.

Louis will _kill_ them if they are.

"I mean, they could be," Nick says, walking very fast on his stupid long legs, making it so that Louis has to run up to him and grab his hand to keep him from getting too far ahead. "We are young, and all that."

"Can't believe you're quoting a fun. record at me at a time like this."

"I can't either. I hate fun." Nick says, slowing his pace a little and squeezing Louis’s hand. "Except I do like that record."

"I do too," Louis says, actually jealous now that he’s never actually managed to get himself into a food fight like in the video. "Although I don't know if I’m going to be able to carry you home if you feel like falling down. What with you being an Ent."

"Not an Ent," Nick says, a little tetchily, but when Louis looks over at him he’s grinning down at his feet. 

And it’s nice, that, seeing him smile in the sunlight, seeing it glint off his hair as they’re trudging through the muck to where the Renault is...most definitely _not_.

"They stole my fucking car," Louis says, staring disbelievingly at the empty space. 

"They definitely went somewhere in it, yes."

"They _took_ it Nicholas, and they've _left_ us."

"You don’t know that they've _left_ us," Nick says, rubbing his thumb against Louis’s. "Maybe they just went to do a little shop or summat. Buy us things for the road."

"Then why don't they answer their _phones_?"

He can feel Nick’s shrug. "Maybe they're having a bit of a snog in a Tesco somewhere. Got, I dunno, all bothered by the right banana or something, and just had to have each other right there."

"'Really, Nicholas," Louis says, "'had to have each other?'"

"I, um, might have pinched one of my mum’s Harlequins when I was little?"

Louis raises an eyebrow at him.

"Alright fine," Nick says, kicking at a non-existent rock. "I was just...feeling kind of low once, don't even remember when really, and Pixie, you know Pixie, gave me one she'd found on a bench one night. Said it'd be a laugh, reading it."

"Was it?"

Louis isn’t going to be focusing on that bit about Nick feeling low at _all_. 

"Gave up halfway through actually." Nick's looking at him almost apologetically. "Don't know if you noticed, but I can get...bored...easily."

So Louis can fret about being dull after all.

 _Fantastic_.

"Hadn’t noticed actually," he says, letting go of Nick’s hand and stuffing both of his into his jeans pockets.

"Oh but you're different," Nick says, and when Louis sneaks a glance at him, he’s biting at his lip and playing with his hair, dropping his hand once he realises that Louis is looking. "Well you are," he adds, and Louis can't understand why it looks like he’s frowning just a bit. "You're, like, really smart, and you know all these things about books and such, and I don’t even know what you're saying sometimes because it’s way above _my_ head, but it’s...interesting...to hear you talk about it."

"I'm not really smart," Louis says, stepping closer to Nick and putting an arm around his waist, relaxing into it when Nick puts an arm around his shoulders. "Honestly I just read too much."

"But you remember all those things you read."

"Not as well as you think," Louis says, squeezing Nick’s hip. "Like, I remember characters real well, but a lot of the time I have trouble remembering all the things they actually _do_."

"And besides," he adds after a moment, "you know a lot more than I do about bands and such, so I'd say we're about on par, really."

"We are a pair," Nick says, squeezing his shoulder.

"A pair who've been abandoned in Salisbury it would seem."

It’s still worrying, after all, not knowing just where Harry and Liam have fucked off to with his vehicle, but it’s loads better with Nick by his side.

"Don't know if I want to have to live in Salisbury though," Nick says, tightening his grip. Louis is going to take it to mean he feels the same way Louis does, and he isn’t going to be hearing differently out of his brain, thank you very much. "Was quite happy in Exeter."

"That mean you're sticking around then? After you've got your Masters?"

"Plan to," Nick says, idly moving his thumb across the top of Louis’s shoulder. "You know, find me a nice lad to settle down with, get a house, the whole lot."

"A dog?" Louis asks, prodding at Nick’s waist with his thumb.

Nick flinches but doesn't move away, and Louis thinks it's very...interesting that he's found a ticklish spot. Not that he plans on really doing anything with the knowledge - because the last thing he wants to do to Nick is what was once done to him and he will be breathing now and not thinking about _that_ or _then_ or _him_ \- but it's just...interesting, that’s all.

"Got to have the dog, yeah," he hears Nick say as he’s slowly moving his arm from about Nick’s waist and surreptitiously wiping his sweaty hand across his jeans.

"What are you gonna name it?" he asks, lowly, willing his voice not to shake.

"Dunno," Nick says, and Louis can see him studying his face out of the corner of his eye. "Depends on the dog really. What they're like, that sort of thing."

"You have to know a dog before you name it?"

Louis starts fiddling with his fringe, pushing it down over his eyes.

He’s not _hiding_ though.

Not him.

"Yeah," Nick says, and it's almost got a weird sort of breathless sound to it. Or maybe Louis is projecting, who knows? "I mean, you could name a dog Fred, right? But then you get it home and find out it's a, I dunno, a George or something."

Louis gusts out a laugh, his cheeks feeling warm for some reason. Probably the sunlight on them, most like. "Think if you didn’t name it Padfoot then you'd be making a big mistake."

"Not very original though is it, Padfoot?"

All Louis can do is smile and shake his head.

"I mean," Nick continues, obviously well into it, "how many dogs d'you think have been named Padfoot since, well, whenever those books came out?"

"Don't know," Louis says, well pleased with the distraction and nudging at Nick’s foot with one mucky trainer. "But if I had to guess I'd say you’ve got your radio voice on and it’s proper weird."

Nick makes a face at him. "I don’t have a radio voice."

"Yeah you do," Louis says, turning and smearing muck on Nick’s other shoe. "And you were using it just now, all loud and...hand-wavy."

"I wasn't even _moving_ my hands," Nick says, looking at his shoes like he’s seeing them for the first time. Which, he probably is, since they're just as brown as Louis’s own now. 

" _This_ time," Louis says, digging a toe into the muck in attempt to at least have his shoes look worse since he’s just now started to regret, which, thanks brain, getting Nick's so messed up.

"Gave my sister a black eye once, waving my hands about." He almost looks fond when Louis glances back up at him, although Louis thinks that's a weird memory to be fond of. "So you're probably right."

"I'm always right," Louis says, more out of habit than anything. The sun's properly in his eyes now, and it’s like everything’s all white and washed-out and his skin's started to crawl and itch and he just wants to...be _elsewhere_.

"D'you mind if we go back to the room for a bit?" he asks, more to Nick’s hair than to his face. "I just...don’t fancy waiting around in a car park for whenever Harold and Liam decide to turn back up."

"Me either really," Nick says, rubbing at the skin around his eyes. "Gonna get crow's feet if I stay out in the sun like this."

"I did take your sunglasses didn't I?"

"More like I gave them to you," Nick says, dropping his hands to his sides. "And I'd do it again, just so you know, so...yeah."

"Even if I lost them?"

He's actually not sure if he’s lost them, but he definitely can’t remember right now where they are.

Nick laughs. "Think those were Harry's anyway, so it’s fine, really."

"Were they actually his sunglasses?" Louis asks, letting Nick take his hand and lead him back to the hostel. His skin's still sort of...skittery, but Nick’s hand is warm and solid and sure in his own.

“Looked like his,” Nick says with a shrug, swinging their joined hands between them as they’re walking back up the drive. “Hard to tell he’s got so many.”

Louis huffs out a laugh. “He really does.”

They’re almost at the door when Nick says, “If they’re not back by lunch, probably ought to be calling the police.”

Louis nods and lets Nick hold the door open for him. 

He can do until lunchtime.

~*~

He’s cursing at _Crusader’s Quest_ on his phone, Nick tucked (albeit not very helpfully) into his side, when Liam and Harry, who's now wearing a black t-shirt with 'Stonehenge Rocks' across the front of it, _finally_ decide to make an appearance.

“Where the _fuck_ have you two been?” he asks, not even bothering with any sort of preamble, chiefly because right now Harry and Liam don’t _deserve_ any sort of preamble.

“Stonehenge,” Harry says, smoothing down his shirt as easy as anything, like he hasn’t been gone for _hours_.

Louis knows it’s been hours on account of how he’s kept pausing the game to check the time.

“And you couldn’t have left anyone a _note_?” he asks, well, demands, about to toss his mobile at Harry’s head when he thinks better of it and pitches his pillow at him instead.

“We did leave a note,” Liam puts in, looking at Harry and then at Louis.

“And where did you _leave_ this note?” Louis asks, getting right out of bed and putting his hands on his hips. 

It’s either that or strangle someone.

“At the desk,” Liam says, looking at Louis all wide-eyed, and as usual, it’s enough to calm him down.

“There wasn’t anyone at the desk to give it to us,” Nick says, climbing out of bed himself and coming to stand beside Louis. “They’re not about until after three usually. You know, for check-in. The lady told me yesterday when I was getting us our room keys.”

“I didn’t…” Liam says, looking like he’s almost going to be sick, and Louis can almost see his breath stutter when Harry slides closer to him and puts a hand on his back. “I didn’t _know_. I thought...” 

“It’s fine Liam,” Louis says, although it’s really not. “Just answer your phone next time so I don’t think you’re dead or something, yeah?”

"Or that we've been abandoned in Salisbury," Nick puts in, resting a hand on Louis’s hip. "I mean, it's nice, but Lou and I prefer Exeter."

And...he isn’t wrong.

Ever since Nick mentioned getting a house in Exeter and settling into it, Louis has been thinking that nothing really sounds better.

He knows he’s not ready for _that_ yet, but it...just really feels like something he ought to be striving for.

Eventually.

But for now…

“You’re taking my driving turn,” he says, mostly to Liam since Harry’s not looking at him at all. “Nick’s too, on account of how you made us worry.”

“Suppose that’s fair,” Harry says, still focused on Liam. “Can take this one if you’re not up to it.”

“I’m fine,” Liam says, but he still looks ill.

"What'd I say about lying, Liam?" Louis says, coming around to his other side and tapping at his hip.

"That I shouldn't do it because I'm rubbish at it," Liam mumbles at his feet.

"You're the worst at it actually," Louis says, about to pull him into a hug, changing his mind when he realises Harry’s still got his hand on Liam’s back, and Louis is in no way disrupting _that_. "Which means if you're ill then Harold ought to be the one getting us into Kent."

He sees Harry nod as Liam runs his hand over his face and drops it to his side.

"I'm really okay," Liam says, giving Louis a small smile. “It’s just...you know…”

“No I don’t know _Leeyum_ ,” Louis says, raising an eyebrow at him when he doesn’t continue. “So how about you enlighten me?”

Liam glances at Harry and then at Louis before settling back on his feet. “I _can’t_ ,” he says eventually, looking up at Louis all wide-eyed. “Not…”

“Not?” Louis asks, clapping a hand over his mouth before he adds on a _here_.

Because wouldn’t _that_ be awkward?

Louis thinks it’s already awkward enough, what with how Harry’s suddenly taken a step back and with how he can see Nick start to playing with his hair out of the corner of his eye.

Which is why he starts fussing with his own hair, flicking his fringe away from his eyes, and gives Liam a punch in the shoulder with his other hand.

"Did you at least get us something to eat whilst you two were on your little adventure?"

Liam shakes his head, his bottom lip out, and right.

"Excuse us," Louis says, smiling brightly and mostly at Harry. "We'll just be outside for a moment."

He doesn't even wait for anyone to respond, just grabs Liam’s arm and pulls him along, into the corridor and down the stairs, not stopping until they're literally back outside and stood under a tree near the car park.

“I’m sorry,” is the first thing Liam says, slumping against the tree, and that’s nice and all, but at the same time it feels like...a bit too much.

"What exactly are you apologising for?" Louis asks, crossing his arms and kicking at Liam’s foot.

"You know," Liam says, frowning at his shoes before briefly meeting Louis’s eyes. "Going to Stonehenge like that."

"You just left the note in the wrong place Liam," Louis says, kicking at his other foot. "Just stick it to my forehead next time, yeah?"

Liam looks up at him, confused. "So you're not angry that me and Harry just...went?"

It’s Louis’s turn to be confused. "Should I be?"

Liam shoves his hands in his pockets. "I thought you might since...since it's always been me and you sneaking out like that," he says, softly with a bit of a smile. "Like how we'd known each other for a week back in first year and you were already trying to get me to bunk off from classes."

"That was a fun time," Louis says, sliding his own hands into his pockets. "You were so stubborn too."

Liam grins down at his feet, all crinkle-eyed. "Figured at least one of us needed to know the material."

Louis huffs out a laugh. "Certainly wasn’t going to be me."

Liam shakes his head, still smiling. "Definitely wasn't going to be you."

"Fuck off," Louis says, punching him again. "Seem to remember having to read over most of your essays."

"You did," Liam says, nodding, and adding eventually, "So it’s really alright, me and Harry?"

"'Course it’s alright," Louis says, slotting into place beside him against the tree and looping an arm around his neck to pull him closer. "Could do a lot worse than dear Harold."

Liam _has_ done a lot worse, but Louis is sure they both know it, so there's no real use in bringing it up.

"You won’t feel left out?"

"Of course I'm going to feel a bit left out," Louis says, even though he’s not really thought about it until now. "But it’s not about me is it? It's about _you_ , Liam, what makes _you_ happy, and I'd be the worst best friend in history if I ever made you pick me over you."

"You're the best best friend," Liam says, putting an arm around Louis’s waist.

"I really am," Louis says, squeezing Liam’s shoulder. “And I’ve got Nicholas, so if you and Harold are being all...whatever one day, I can just go round to his and bother him until you’re done.”

“I’m glad you two worked it out. Got weird there for a bit.”

“It...did.”

“Harry was going to lock you both in a cupboard if you didn’t start behaving.”

“He _what_?”

“He said it’d force the two of you to talk,” Liam says, all sincerity. “I was supposed to help get _you_ in there.”

“And how were you planning on managing _that_ Liam?”

He feels Liam’s shrug. "Harry said I should tell you there was free pizza in it or something."

"Think it'd take more than free pizza to lure me into a cupboard Li."

"He also said I should get you some...you know, but I flat refused on that one."

Louis laughs. "I'd get it for you."

"I wouldn't want it."

"I know you wouldn't," Louis says, letting go of Liam’s shoulder in order to ruffle his hair. "But one day Payno. You mark my words. One day."

"Not a chance," Liam says, pushing himself off the tree, adjusting his hair, and following Louis back inside. 

~*~

They’ve just got to the A30 when Louis remembers that he isn't leaving Salisbury without a certain book, and he has no qualms at all about waving his mobile in Liam’s face, showing him just how close to a bookshop they'd been and demanding that they turn around.

"Show Harry," Liam says, ducking out of the way. "He's driving."

"Don't need us getting into a collision Liam," Louis says, although he does start poking at Harry’s shoulder with his mobile until Harry heaves out a great big sigh and switches lanes. 

"What’s he so grumpy for?" Nick puts in, leaning over and whispering to Louis once he’s got himself settled in the backseat again. "Thought he’d be pleased we're going to a bookshop."

Louis shrugs, re-checking the map on his mobile. "Must be out of kale."

"I'm actually not that into kale," Harry says. "And I could buy some if I wanted."

"I'm sorry, but who the hell are you and what've you done with Harold?" Louis asks, leaning forward again and trying to grab a bit of Harry’s hair.

" _Nothing_ ," Harry says, all affronted. "I'm just not...I don’t...I just like healthy things sometimes, alright? Doesn’t mean I'm going off to California and starting a...I dunno, organic beet farm or something."

Louis laughs and tugs on a curl. "Never said you were, Harold darling. But you are rather into green things, I can tell you that."

"There’s not anything wrong with that," Liam says, reaching over and patting Harry on the arm.

"I didn’t say there was," Louis says, and he really doesn't think he has. "Harold’s just being a stroppy git again for some reason."

"You did say he was out of Bukowski," Nick says, and _fuck_ , Louis did say that didn’t he?

And of course, right on cue, Harry just has to say, "I'm not out of Bukowski."

But before Louis can even finish wishing for the ground to swallow him whole, Harry adds, "I finished reading all his stuff...last month, I think? One of you gave me a book for my birthday and it was the only one I didn’t have, and...yeah I finished it not long after I got it."

"So technically you _are_ out of Bukowski," Louis says, breathing out a sigh of relief and trying not to be obvious about it. He's resolutely _not_ looking at Nick.

"I guess," Harry says, shrugging as they’re heading into a roundabout.

"So why are you being such a grouch then?" Nick asks, and nope, still not looking at him. "Because if you didn’t want to drive now, then you shouldn't have snuck out like you did this morning and given me and Lou such a fright."

"Wasn’t trying to give anyone a fright," Harry says, and Louis can see him putting a hand in his hair. "Just...thought it was a good idea."

And Louis is really about to ask _why_ he'd think sneaking off like that was a good idea when he gets it.

_Series of escalating presents._

Because whilst he and Nick had ventured into the rain to look at Stonehenge, Harry and Liam had stayed in the Renault where it was dry, and so Liam hadn’t got to see the monument very well at all.

But Harry'd made sure that he saw it before he left.

"It was lovely idea," Louis says, looking over at Nick, who somehow doesn’t look all that cross with him, and mouthing _tell you later_. "Execution was crap, mind, but it was a pretty good idea, yeah."

"I had a good time," Liam puts in. "And Harry got a shirt."

"I noticed that," Louis says. "'Stonehenge Rocks?'"

"Because they’re rocks," Liam says. "And it was cool going there."

 _You probably didn't have a meltdown like I did_ , Louis thinks but keeps to himself, sneaking another glance at Nick out of the corner of his eye.

“Glad you got to see it,” he sort of chokes out, focusing his attention back on his mobile and zooming in farther on the map than he probably should. “There’s an Oxfam shop on Catherine Street.”

“Thought we were going to Smith’s,” Nick says as Louis is trying to get his map back right.

“Kind of think I want to try my luck,” Louis says, shooting him a brief smile before clicking off his mobile, wedging it between his legs, and running his hands across his thighs to get a bit of the damp off.

“Try your luck?” Nick asks, lowly enough that Liam and Harry don’t seem to hear, and Louis is about to come up with _something_ when Harry asks, “Where’s Catherine Street?”

And Louis would much rather give Harry the directions, since that involves less looking like a fool, staring as he is at Nick with his mouth all hanging open, so he just shakes his head and gets his mobile back out, clicking it on, and pulling up the map.

"Basically," he says, having to pause to clear his dry throat, "It’s near the hostel, just on the other side of the A36 and over a couple of streets."

"So I'm just going back to the hostel then?" Harry asks.

"Might as well," Louis says, still fiddling with his mobile and very much trying to ignore the feeling of Nick’s eyes boring into the side of his face. "Then you can take Milford to Catherine."

"That’s simple enough," Liam says, all brightness, and Louis, he just...can't...deal with it anymore.

It’s just...it’s all so...vivid and light and _loud_.

The sun pouring down, Liam, earlier when he'd _remembered_ , everything. 

It’s just all...too bright, like a spotlight's shining on him and illuminating everything that he’s managed to hide underneath his itchy, crawling skin.

He pulls his hood up over his head and tucks his hands into his sleeves before crossing his arms and slouching down as far as he can in his seat, trying to lose himself in Salisbury rolling by until it fades.

~*~

The feeling’s not much better by the time Harry’s managed to parallel park the Renault on Catherine Street.

It’s really all Louis can do _not_ to jump out and take off running.

But...he isn’t going to do that, because he wants to try _so fucking hard to do this right_ , even if it’s going to end in disaster, and so he sticks by Nick’s side, close enough that they could touch if they wanted to, but making no move to get his hands out of his pockets.

He’s just...he’s going to focus on getting a copy of _Chamber Music_ and nothing else, and maybe that will somehow be enough.

He isn’t even bothered by the still niggling doubt that _Chamber Music_ is absolutely the wrong thing. At this point, he's decided that he’s getting the damn book and giving it to Nick - with his _marginalia_ \- even if it kills him.

Which, it probably will.

Nick’s probably going to leave like they all do, but goddamn if he’s not going with a book in his hand.

"Haven’t been to an Oxfam shop in a while," Nick’s saying beside him and when Louis cuts a glance over at him he sees that he's got his hands in his pockets as well. "Used to get dragged round all the time with Harold up there" Harry and Liam are indeed walking ahead of them " but I guess he got bored with going or summat."

And that doesn't sound quite right - Harry being bored with the charity shops - but Louis just really...can't think about that right now because there’s so much...noise clattering about in his head.

So he keeps it down and keeps walking and mutters out a _thanks_ when Nick gets the door for him, heading straight for the books once he’s inside.

He’s trailing a finger along the spines because he can’t think clearly enough to see straight and actually _read_ them when he feels someone _hovering_ at his side.

Louis really hates hovering, and he’s about to tell whoever it is off when he looks up and sees that it’s Nick.

Nick, which of course it would be him here to witness Louis’s further descent into whatever the fuck this is, stood there right beside him, and Louis can't tell - again - whether he's angry or about to say something that’s going to cut Louis neatly in two.

Louis’s lungs seize, like they do, and his heart stops.

Just stops.

"I, um," Nick says, biting at his lip and tugging at his hair, "I can...help...if you want me to."

"With finding the book," he adds, gesturing with his free hand at the books when Louis doesn’t respond, because of course right now Louis _can’t_ respond. "You're looking for a certain one, right?"

All Louis can do is nod.

"Alright," Nick says, his face settling into some sort of smile, and it sends the air rushing back into Louis’s lungs. Nick then turns to the books and, peering at them, asks, "So what’s it called, this book?"

" _Chamber Music_ ," Louis says, a bit thinly, and he really hadn’t planned on having Nick help him look for it, but he’s so damn...grateful that Nick’s willing to help at all that he'll gladly take it.

" _Chamber Music_ ," Nick echoes, scanning over the titles. "What’s that one about?"

"It’s poems," Louis says, turning his attention to the books himself.

"Are they those weird poems where shoes are the meaning of life or summat?"

Louis can't help but laugh. "What poem have you ever read where shoes were the meaning of life?"

"Sure there's at least one," Nick says, and when Louis looks over at him, his face is oddly pink.

"There isn’t," Louis says, still looking at him.

"Checked did you?" Nick asks, and when Louis doesn’t answer - can’t answer because it’s all he can do not to fling himself at Nick like an idiot - Nick looks over at _him_ , a bit wide-eyed with his lips slightly parted, and that, coupled with his face and the hair, is just...

"You're stupidly hot, did you know that?" he says, turning right back to the books and trying to look in earnest for James Joyce.

And it’s not quite what he'd meant to say, and his cheeks are definitely on fire, but Louis thinks it _needs_ saying before Nick takes off with his book.

"Don't think anyone’s ever called me stupidly hot before," Nick says, and he sounds so pleased that Louis can’t help but look at him to make sure.

"Well you are," Louis says, once he sees that Nick’s definitely pleased, his cheeks a deeper pink and his hand back in his hair. "So you best be remembering it for next time."

"Next time?"

"Yeah you know," Louis says, going back to the books and frowning at a copy of _Ulysses_ that'd managed to get his hopes up. Couldn’t have at least been _Portrait_. "For when someone’s telling you that you're hot, so you won't be all surprised about it."

"No, it's just...not so much surprise as it’s...you'd really think that about me."

Louis scoffs. "I have _eyes_ Nicholas. Of course I think that about you."

"And just how long have you thought that?" 

Nick’s tone is teasing but his voice is soft.

Louis shrugs - because he truly has no idea how long it's been only that it’s been a while - and pokes at a very battered copy of _Dune_ before shoving his hands into his hoodie and facing Nick.

"Fishing for compliments are we?" he asks, raising an eyebrow and beginning to walk past him.

"Always," Nick says, right away falling into step with him. 

"Too bad you only get one a day," Louis says, and he can’t resist a smile in Nick’s direction.

The one he gets in return almost makes him feel electric.

But, better electric than...skittery. 

It’s harder to feel skittery when Nick’s looking at him like that.

"So no luck?" Nick asks, quietly, as they’re heading toward the door.

Louis shakes his head. "Wasn’t much chance really, but I thought I'd try."

"Smith’s isn’t too far if you wanted to try there," Nick says, holding the door open for him and letting him pass through.

"S'alright," Louis says, and it is somehow. "Got a copy at my mum's. Just get her to send it down."

That...would actually be better in the end.

Louis doesn’t think he could give Nick a copy of _Chamber Music_ , have him leave, and then go back to face his own.

"You like it that much you had to have another copy?" 

"They're lovely poems," Louis says, heading right for the Renault and not bothering to see where Harry and Liam are. "Everyone always thinks Joyce is so impenetrable, but he wrote these really gorgeous poems, and I, well, I just really like them."

"What are they about?"

And Louis isn’t going to lie.

Not this time.

"Love," he says, staring straight ahead as they’re walking. "They're about love."

~*~

Louis doesn’t know how long they've been on the road when Nick drops his mobile with an awful clatter and, rather than picking it up, grabs Louis’s hand, holding it so tightly that Louis thinks the blood supply might soon be cut off.

"You alright?" he whispers, his heart racing.

Nick nods, shuts his eyes for a moment, and breathes out a _yes_.

And he doesn’t let go of Louis’s hand, not even after the A30 becomes the A303 becomes the M3 becomes the M25.

His grip loosens eventually, but Nick never lets go.

~*~

By the time they’re passing through a place called Crockham Hill, Louis is absolutely _starving_.

It’s his fault, he knows, - he’d not had breakfast and he'd also refused to let them stop on the motorway since it might have meant he'd have had to make Nick let go of his hand - but it doesn't keep him from announcing the fact as Harry’s parking, mercifully, near a pub.

"Do suppose I owe you lunch," Harry says, and Louis wouldn’t have pushed it that far really, but if Harry is volunteering, he isn’t exactly going to turn it down.

"And it’s not McDonald's," Louis says, sliding his feet into his shoes. "I feel well special."

"You shouldn't," Nick puts in, squeezing Louis’s hand and letting go at last. "He _hates_ McDonald's."

"Not enough kale," Louis agrees, making a face at Harry when he turns around and glares at him.

"Their food doesn’t go off," Harry says. " _Ever_."

"Maybe," Louis says, opening his door. "But have you ever considered that maybe I like their plasticky food?"

"Their chips are fantastic," Nick says with a bit of a sigh as he’s opening his own door.

"And the chicken nuggets," Liam puts in.

"You're all hopeless," Harry says, and Louis doesn’t have to see him to know he's shaking his head.

"More like you're just weird," he says, before hopping out of the Renault and slamming his door shut.

Harry restarts the car just enough to roll his window down and say, very matter-of-factly, "I am weird, thanks."

"The weirdest," Louis says, reaching in and patting his arm. "Dunno why you want to go out-living all of us, but that’s gonna be you, here with the cockroaches and piles of pristine Maccy D's things still in their wrappers."

Harry snorts out a laugh and rolls his window back up, and when Louis steps away to let him get his door open, he collides with Nick.

"You're a fast one," he says, tipping his head back to look at him, grateful that he hadn't jumped and ended up face-planting into Nick’s chin.

There’s something almost electric curling around his neck, but it's pleasant for once, and Louis hadn't jumped, so yeah, happy days.

"I'd have got your door only you were faster," Nick says, and his voice is a bit off, but his arms are going around Louis’s waist, so, still, good.

"Not on a date Nicholas," Louis says, crossing his eyes at him and patting at his wrists where they're linked and resting on Louis’s stomach. 

"Maybe I just wanted to get your door," Nick says, wrinkling his nose at _him_.

And that’s just fucking endearing as all hell, the nose-wrinkling, and although the angle's off, Louis gets up on his toes and kisses him as best he can. He mostly ends up getting Nick's hair, but he loves Nick’s hair, so it’s alright. 

Still loves Nick just a little bit too, and that’s...less alright, because it is going to fucking _hurt,_ but right now Nick’s looking at him like he means something and there’s a smile on his face mixed with a bit of sadness that Louis doesn’t understand, but it’s a smile all the same, a real one, and if Nick’s - mostly - happy, then Louis thinks he might just try to be too.

For as long as he can.

"Let you get it some other time I suppose," he says, his head still tilted back, shutting his eyes and laughing when Nick leans in and kisses the tip of his nose.

"Other people do want to eat you know," he hears Harry say.

Louis keeps his head right where it is and flips him off.

~*~

"I am _not_ eating hummus Harold," Louis says, squeezing behind Nick as best he can whilst trying to avoid the _bean paste_ on pitta that Harry keeps trying to shove in his face.

"I know," Harry says, leaning in further, the persistent bastard. "Because I splashed out and let you get a cottage pie and mash. Least you could do is try it before you make faces at it."

"You like peas," Liam puts in, trying to be helpful Louis supposes, only he’s not sure why Harry and Liam are so set on feeding him all of a sudden.

"Because it means I've got an excuse to get a crumble for afters," Harry says when Louis asks, which...

"You don’t need an excuse," Louis says, stifling a laugh when Nick plucks Harry’s pitta right out of his hand and pops it in his mouth. "Just get the damn thing. Or get two rather, since I'm actually going to be stealing yours."

"I want a crumble," Liam says, looking up from where he’s been sorting olives into little piles.

“Looks like you’re getting everyone a crumble Harold,” Louis says, pinching one of Liam’s olives and flicking it right at Harry’s giant head.

Harry glares first at the olive and then at Louis before picking the olive back up and winging it at him.

It bounces off his forehead and lands right in the centre of Louis’s mash, and “you actual _bastard_ ,” he says, picking up a bit of chorizo and sending that across the table next. “I was going to eat that.”

“They’re such children,” he hears Liam tell Nick as he’s ducking out of the way of the chorizo on its return.

“They really are,” is Nick’s response, and if he gets an olive flicked at _him_ , he’s really only got himself to blame.

“Come off it Nicholas,” he says, getting the olive out of Nick’s hair because it’s a fantastic excuse to touch said hair, “know you’re not allergic to fun like Liam is over there.”

“Not allergic to fun,” Liam says, frowning down at his side of the platter he and Harry have been sharing. “It’s just...this is a nice place, yeah? And maybe I don’t want to go throwing food in it.”

And alright, he’s probably got a point.

A point Louis is very much not fond of, but a point all the same.

“Yeah alright,” he says. “Sorry. Harold? I’ll get us the crumble if you don’t mind.”

“Don’t mind at all,” Harry says. “Sorry about your mash.”

“S’just mash,” Louis says, although he _had_ been looking forward to it. “But thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Harry says, smirking, and Louis really can’t resist getting in one last olive at him.

“Tit,” he says, but Harry just laughs and leans into Liam’s shoulder, and for a split second Louis thinks that this could well be the four of them years from now.

Him and his Nicholas and Harry and his Liam sat somewhere at dinner long after uni’s done with, still together even after they no longer have to be.

It’s so far away that he’s only able to get a glimpse of it, but he just...really likes what he sees.

“Cheers lads,” he says, before it gets to be too much, holding up his pint glass in a toast. “Best road trip ever.”

“Best road trip ever,” Harry and Liam and _Nicholas_ echo, clinking their glasses together, and as Louis has got his own glass to his lips he’s just as suddenly thinking…

_It’s never going to be like this again._

~*~

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Louis asks, stood right behind Harry as he’s holding the door open.

It’s just...it’s fucking raining.

 _Again_.

“What the bloody fuck?” he says, pulling his hood up and tucking himself into Nick’s side, feeling only slightly mollified when Nick’s arm winds itself about his waist.

“Looks like it’s raining,” Liam says, peering around Harry’s shoulder, and _no shit_.

“Thank you Liam,” he says, rolling his eyes at him once he’s turned away. “How the fuck are we supposed to be seeing anything in the rain?”

“Maybe we can just get a postcard,” Nick puts in, and that’s an idea, but it involves _getting out in the rain_. And getting out in the rain means getting his hair all fucked up, and Louis _hates_ it when his hair’s all fucked up.

Not to mention that he had quite enough getting out in the rain yesterday, thanks.

"We've got an umbrella," Harry puts in, and whilst they do have an umbrella - a possibly _bewitched_ umbrella - Louis is just...entirely too annoyed with the weather _not cooperating_ to really see it as any sort of fix.

"Or we could just skip this one and go to the one in Essex. Might not be raining in Essex," Liam suggests.

"More like the rain would probably just follow us to Essex," Louis grumbles.

"Does seem to have followed us from Somerset, hasn’t it?" Nick asks, moving his arm to rub at Louis’s back. It’s almost idly, really, but it’s so very soothing at the same time.

Louis nods and buries his face in Nick’s side.

And he knows he’s being a bit pettish, but it’s just so...disappointing how it's quickly becoming evident that this is in fact _not_ the best road trip ever.

He thinks he really would go back to his room and hide under his duvet, only that'd feel a bit too much like actual failure, and Louis isn’t quite ready to drown in that just yet, so he will...just have to push forward with this entire...disaster, and once it does fall apart, _then_ he can go hide.

 _Good god this is misery innit?_ he thinks, unwinding his arms from about Nick’s waist, adjusting his fringe, and walking right over to Harry to demand the keys.

"You hate driving in the rain," Harry says as he's handing them over, and Louis does, but he thinks that maybe driving will distract him enough that he won't notice the word _failure_ looming large in his mind.

"Haven’t driven since Salisbury," he says, flashing Harry a grin he doesn't entirely feel. "'Bout time I see what you've done to my car."

"Been nothing but gentle to your car," Harry says, falling into step behind him.

"I'll be the judge of that Harold," Louis says, tossing a glance at him over his shoulder before breaking into a run.

~*~

"I don’t know," Liam says from the backseat. "Looks kinda cool how the wind's moving all that water about."

And Liam isn't _wrong_ , exactly, because it is rather impressively tempest-y looking out there, but it’s almost impossible to get a decent picture of it through his window.

"Almost think you should just video it," Nick says, leaning right over his shoulder, and ordinarily Louis would sock anybody he caught peeping like that, but it’s Nicholas and he'll let it slide just this once, and it’s also not the worst idea he’s ever heard, so he just sets about switching over to video and holding his mobile back up to the window.

He gets about two minutes of footage, figuring that’s plenty for Mr Bento, and he isn’t sure why, but he’s oddly hesitant when he’s handing it over to Nick for him to look over.

"Think he'll like that?" he asks softly enough so Harry can’t hear. 

"Bento?" Nick whispers back, pausing the video and looking over.

"Yeah," Louis breathes out with a nod.

Nick doesn’t say anything, but when he restarts the video, he’s got a very serious expression on his face, almost like he's focusing all of his concentration on it.

"Think that’s a good one," he says eventually, handing Louis back his mobile.

"I wanna see," Liam says from the back seat, and Louis is about to let him when Nick says, "You can’t."

"It's just...," he continues when Louis looks over at him. His face is really pale for some reason and his eyes are wide, wide as Louis’s own. "You can't yet. There’s...someone else we have to show it to first, yeah? Isn’t fair if you see it before they do."

"Who've you got to show it to?" Harry asks, and Louis can actually hear something a lot like suspicion in his voice.

"Just someone me and Louis know, that's all," Nick says, which, thank god, because all Louis can do is gape at him.

"Do I know them?" Harry asks, and he does, technically, although Louis isn’t going to be telling him that.

Which is why he's grateful when Nick says, "You do, but you don't know them like Lou and I know them."

Louis doesn’t have to turn around to know that Harry’s got his brows furrowed. "So who is it, this person you and Louis somehow know better than I do?"

"Just someone Harold," Louis says, a bit sharply in the hope that he'll drop it. 

"So why can't you tell me who it is?"

 _Because it's absurd_ , Louis thinks.

"Why do you care so much?" he asks instead.

"I don't _care_ ," Harry says, the liar. "I just want to know who it is."

And Louis is about to retort with something about how he and Nick are allowed friends who aren't Harry, when Nick cuts in with a "Maybe we'll tell you later. After we've got back and shown...this person what we want them to see."

That...is probably the better way of going about it, yes.

"Alright," Harry says, although he doesn't sound very happy about it, and Louis is just about to start the car when he hears Harry add, "It’s one of your mums, isn’t it?"

Louis almost chokes, and his hand stutters on the ignition.

"Why's it got to be my mum?" he hears Nick ask.

"Didn’t say it was _your_ mum," Harry retorts as Louis is having another go at the ignition. "Could be Louis’s mum."

"You've never met my mum," Louis says, putting the Renault in gear with a little more force than necessary.

"No one's met your mum," Harry says. "Every time we mention going up there you get all...difficult."

"Maybe there's just nothing to see in Donny," Louis fires back, knowing it’s untrue, but very much not interested in getting into why he’s never had his friends home in two years.

"You went home for Christmas with me, like, our first year, and I know Doncaster's got more in it than Holmes Chapel."

"That’s not even a fair comparison," Louis says, stomping at the accelerator and wishing it was Harry’s face. "And you promised you'd bake me all these things for my birthday, and I wasn’t going to turn that down, was I?"

"What'd you bake?" Liam asks, and Louis could hug him out of sheer gratitude.

"You've never made me anything for my birthday," Nick says, pouting, and Louis could hug him too.

"Just a cake," Harry mutters, and Louis can't help but laugh. 

"Just a cake and about a million other things," he says, settling into a speed and slouching a bit in his seat. He's got no idea how long it actually takes to get to this place in Essex, but it already feels like it might be a very long drive.

"It was your birthday," Harry says, still quietly, "and..."

"And the girls had all saved up for almost a year to take Mum to Blackpool for Chrimbo, only I didn’t feel like going so I let you take me home and feed me."

It’s not the entire story, really, but it’s enough of it.

"Why didn’t you want to go to Blackpool?" Liam asks. "Heard it's nice there at Christmas."

 _Because the girls couldn't afford to take me too_.

Not that they'd ever said, but he knew it'd been so, and he'd just pretended not to be interested when they'd brought it up.

"Just didn't," he says with a shrug. "And then Harold promised me all this food so it wasn't much of a choice."

"The cake did turn out nice," Harry says, slightly louder. "It was...a chocolate one."

"It was _insane_ ," Louis says, remembering it. "It was dark chocolate, and I think it had...whipped cream, right Harold?"

"And cherries," Harry adds.

"I want a gateau," Nick says, still sounding like he’s pouting. Louis reaches over and pats his arm.

"It is an experience," he says. "Especially making one with Harold there."

Harry laughs. "You're just saying that because we ended up getting smashed off the rum."

"There was more rum in us than was supposed to be in the cake that’s for sure."

It gets quiet for a bit, just the steady tap of rainwater on the roof, and then Harry says, "We should do it again."

"Not just me and Lou," he continues when no one says anything. "But the four of us. Go to my mum’s for Christmas and have cake."

"And rum," Louis says. "Got to have rum."

"I can bring the rum," Nick says, and Louis laughs.

"Bet you could," he says. "Though I doubt there’s any doubloons in Holmes Chapel."

Harry snorts out a laugh, and out of the corner of his eye Louis can see Nick’s face light up, all pink and pleased.

"What about you Li?" he asks, trying to make eye contact with him in the rear view mirror. "You in?"

"If that’s alright," Liam says, and Louis can see enough of him to know he's looking at Harry.

And Harry must nod or something, because then it’s _Liam’s_ face lighting up.

"Wicked," Louis says, and in the interest of not getting them lost _right now_ \- so they _can_ go to Harry’s mum’s for Christmas and not be doomed to wandering the country for ages - he turns to Nick next and finally asks him for the directions.

~*~

The wind picks up again somewhere around Brentwood.

Louis could scream it’s so frustrating.

"It’s just not _fair_ ," he's saying, well, whining more like, to Nick, as they’re making their way across the car park of an inn just off the M25.

Nick’s quiet, his head down, and Louis doesn’t know if it's because of the wind and the rain lashing at them or if it's because, unlike last night, they've got a room to themselves.

Because it’d so happened that there simply weren't any rooms that could fit four people, no matter how many times the nice lady at the desk had checked, and the closest they'd been able to get was a suite with Harry and Liam in one room and Louis and Nick in the other.

"Is a bit wretched," Nick says, and Louis still can't be sure if he’s talking about the weather or the room.

He _hopes_ Nick isn’t talking about the room, but he’d understand if he was.

Louis isn’t bothered, oddly enough, but he’d understand if Nick was.

But then Nick mutters something about lousy Smarch weather, and alright, perhaps Louis _could_ calm the fuck down for five fucking minutes.

"I'm never planning a road trip again," he says, once he and Nick are inside their room, after he’s kicked off his shoes and flopped very ungracefully - and a tinge dramatically - onto the bed. "Ever."

He's rubbing his eyes when he feels the bed dip just at his elbow, and when he moves his hands away, Nick’s sat beside him, looking concerned for some reason before his face clears and he starts moving strands of hair off Louis’s forehead.

"It hasn't been that bad," he says, focusing on his work. 

"It’s been the _worst_ ," Louis says, because it has, what with the weather and his inability to keep his shit together.

"It _hasn't_ ," Nick says, his voice dropping and a very small _unallowed_ frown appearing on his face. "There've been some parts of it that I've really, really liked."

"Like what?"

"Like," Nick says, biting his lip and still not looking at Louis, still moving his fingers through Louis’s fringe, "like being stood in the rain with you at Wimbleball. That was nice."

Louis flushes, remembering.

"What else?" he asks, turning his head a bit more into Nick’s hand.

"Doing the washing."

"Even though I fell asleep on you?"

Nick nods. "Yeah," he says, almost breathlessly. "Meant you were comfortable, yeah?"

Louis nods and shuts his eyes.

They pop right back open when Nick adds, "And I don't always think you are. Comfortable, that is, so last night in the laundry, that was...it was good. That you were comfortable."

"You're rambling," he says as his heart’s trying to edge its way into his throat.

Nick laughs and finally meets Louis’s eyes. "It's a habit. You know how they are."

"Don't know what you're talking about Nicholas," he says, attempting a smile. "I'm perfect. No bad habits, me."

"Except for leaving teacups everywhere."

"It was just the once."

"Wasn’t," Nick says, but he looks almost delighted. "Was at least five times I reckon."

"I've only been to your flat, like, twice recently."

"Still was five teacups and several of my teaspoons I found all over it."

"Maybe those were Harold’s teaspoons," Louis says, arching an eyebrow at him.

"Harry doesn’t take milk in his tea," Nick says, and he isn’t wrong. "And you know how he is about cocoa."

"He does refuse to drink anything that comes out of an envelope," Louis says, shutting his eyes again when Nick goes back to sorting his hair.

"He's an odd one our Harry," Nick says eventually, and Louis would be wondering why they haven’t been graced with a visit from Harry and Liam yet, only Nick’s hand is cool and soothing on his scalp, so much so that he can't really be bothered at the moment.

"Amazing baker though," he says after a minute. "That cake really was excellent, and then he made these biscuits that had white chocolate in and there were some ginger ones because he said we had to have gingerbread for Christmas."

"We should have him do a practice run when we get back," Nick says. "Have him practice his baking so he's ready to feed the four of us."

"Think you’re right," Louis says, opening his eyes and meeting Nick’s. "We should go tell him."

"Maybe later, yeah? After you've had a rest."

"You're sounding like I'm all dainty and faint, like out of a novel or something."

Nevermind that he actually does feel faint with _something_ , although he isn’t entirely sure what it is anymore.

"Maybe I want a rest."

"Do you?"

"Might," Nick says, his expression soft. "Or maybe I just wanted to be alone with you for a bit."

"Alone?"

It comes out a bit choked.

Louis can’t help it.

"Yeah, just," Nick says, fiddling with his hair before dropping his hand to his lap. "Just some things are easier to say without an audience, you know?"

"Like what?"

_Like it’s over and I don’t want to see you anymore._

Or.

_Let’s demote to friends._

Louis has heard that one before, sat on a swing outside Tristan's mum’s house, knowing she was watching through the window as he was having to listen to a very long list of reasons why he and Tris shouldn't date anymore.

He really doesn't know if he could bear hearing that from Nick.

"Like..." 

Nick's suddenly very interested in the duvet.

And if he doesn’t start talking again _soon_ then Louis is going to have a fucking heart attack, and he'd really rather not die in a Holiday Inn in Brentwood.

"Like what?" he asks again, almost whispering it.

"Like," Nick says, finally looking at him with his eyes wide. "Like I read the poems."

"Not all of them," he adds, just as Louis is thinking he's going to have that heart attack after all. "Stopped at number ten or so, but I just...I liked them."

"You weren't supposed to read those," Louis says, rolling over on his side away from Nick, curling up, and burying his flaming face in his hands. 

"I wasn't?"

Louis shakes his head.

"Why not?"

Louis doesn't answer, just curls in further on himself.

"Why is it so bad if I read them?"

Louis’s knees are practically at his face.

"Because I don't think it's bad if I read them," Nick’s saying, and _why the fuck is he still talking like everything’s alright_? "And I don't know why you're upset that I read them or why you've been so upset today, and I just...if something's wrong or...you've changed your mind, I'd...I'd just like to know. I think that’s fair, isn’t it?"

It is, but...

"Changed my mind?"

It almost sounds watery.

"People do sometimes."

It’s almost inaudible.

"I'm not most people."

It’s muffled on account of how Louis has got his face mostly buried in the duvet.

Somehow Nick manages to hear it anyway. 

Because he says "Probably not."

"'M not kissing you right now," Louis says, still into the duvet, just about weightless with relief.

"But you will later, right?"

Louis shrugs, glad some of the heat in his cheeks has started to fade even though his ears are still on fire. "Maybe."

"I'll be very sad if you don’t."

Fucker.

He would say that.

"Bastard," he says, rolling back over and burying his face in Nick’s lap, breathing out a sigh of relief when Nick’s hand comes to rest on his shoulder. "You would fucking say that."

"It’s the truth," Nick says, starting to rub circles on Louis’s back. "I'd be very sad if you didn’t kiss me anymore. Or let me talk about kissing you on the radio. Or steal all my covers when you come over. Or..."

"That’s quite enough thanks," Louis says, reaching up and putting a finger to Nick’s lips.

Nick kisses his finger and then, grabbing his entire hand, relocates it to his lap. "Yeah, well, I hadn't finished. Or if you stopped saying I'm stupidly hot when if either of us is the hot one it’s you."

"Think your mirrors are broken love," he's able to get in before Nick claps his other hand over Louis’s mouth.

"And alright so you're mouthy," Nick says, loud enough so Harry and Liam, wherever they are, can hear. "But you’re so bright, Louis, and I know it's not been that long, but I just...I don’t think I'd like it very much if you changed your mind about all of this. I mean, you can, but I don’t...I don't want to do that again."

Again.

Shit.

He’d somehow managed to forget.

 _Again_.

Louis gently moves Nick’s hand away from his mouth and very slowly sits up so he’s facing him.

"Is that what you were really thinking?" he asks as he’s searching Nick’s face.

Nick nods and glances down at his lap. "Thought it might be a possibility, yeah."

Again, _shit_.

"I'm sorry," he says for what’s probably the millionth time at this point, thinking _fuck it, absolutely fuck it_ , and springing forward to wrap Nick up in an embrace, half-straddling his leg and feeling so much warmth and relief when Nick’s arms meet tightly around his back. "I'm just...sorry. I haven't changed my mind. I've just had a shit couple of days, but I haven't changed my mind. Not at all."

 _I'm terrified you'll change yours_ , he thinks, gripping Nick even harder, _but I haven't changed mine_.

"You know you can tell me about it."

Louis is shaking his head when Nick adds, "Whenever you're ready you can tell me okay?"

"I really don't know if I can," Louis says, a little shakily.

It’s just...it’s not ever been something he's really told anyone.

Not even his mum.

"Alright," Nick says, pressing a kiss into Louis’s hair, "but if you ever decide you can, you know where I live."

Louis can't help but huff out a laugh. "Do know where you live. And depending on what Harold and Liam get up to when we get back, I might be over there a lot more often."

"That'd be alright," Nick says, resting his chin on Louis’s shoulder. "Mum did get me entirely too much of a flat."

"It is massive," Louis agrees. "Why did she get you so big a place?"

Nick shrugs. "Think she just liked the neighbourhood and didn't realise she was getting me a family place."

"You could get a flatmate."

"I could," Nick says after a beat of silence during which Louis’s heart has relocated to his feet. "But I'd rather just lure my boyfriend around. He’s crazy fit."

"That all you like about him?" Louis says, cheeks on fire because _boyfriend_. 

_Fit_ boyfriend.

It’s just...it’s nice, that.

Nothing worth panicking about at all.

"He's got good taste in poems," Nick says after another minute of silence. "Read some behind his back once and they were really good. Not about shoes."

"Oh fuck off," Louis says, ready to jab a finger into him really, only it'd mean he'd had to move his arms and that’s not something he’s interested in at the moment. "I ought not to talk to you for a week for doing that."

"Why's it so bad though?" Nick asks, trying to pull away except Louis won't let him. "It’s just poems."

" _Love_ poems Nicholas," Louis says. "They're love poems and you can't say it isn't too much too soon."

"They're poems _about_ love," Nick says. "About wanting love, Mr English Degree, and you ought to know that's different."

"They're still love poems," Louis grumbles, even though Nick's got a point.

"And so what if they are?" Nick asks, rather loudly. "Isn't anything _wrong_ with love poems, and you and I both know we fancy each other, so I really don't know why it's such a bad thing if we're reading love poems together."

"It’s been two weeks Nicholas."

"And I’ve fancied you since Harry brought you round the first time."

 _Really_?

"That was over a year ago."

"It was."

"I drank all your PBR and ended up killing one of your plants."

"Always did hate that plant. Who gives someone a cactus?”

Louis, finally, smacks him, good and hard.

"You never said," he says, grabbing hold of Nick’s face with both hands. "You could have said."

"Didn’t think you liked me, remember?"

It’s said so gently, but it still manages to sting.

"Yeah," Louis says with a smile he doesn’t entirely feel. "Don't ever do that again."

Nick laughs, and that at least seems real.

"Promise I won't," he says, sobering just a bit and adding, "Long as you don't."

"Hadn’t planned on it," Louis says, swiping his thumb across Nick’s cheekbone. "I mean, you are stupidly hot. Kiss real good too."

It actually does make him feel better, saying those things.

"Believe the word was _brilliant_ actually," Nick says, his cheeks warm in Louis’s hands. "You said I was brilliant at it."

Louis laughs and bites his lip. "You are brilliant at it."

"Good to know," Nick says. "For when that radio career doesn’t work out. I can just go around snogging people. Put it on my CV and everything."

"You could," Louis says with a nod as he’s pulling Nick’s face closer, because he thinks he could do with a bit of brilliant kissing. "But you’re not."

"'M not?" Nick asks, his eyes dropping to Louis’s mouth.

Louis shakes his head just before their noses touch, sliding a hand into Nick’s hair as he’s pressing their lips together. His chest seizes, and Nick’s lips are dry, but they're soft, and Nick’s so, so warm as he’s holding him close. It sets his nerves alight, sparks on metal, and he’s trembling - of course he's trembling - but he _is not going to fall apart_.

Just...not right now.

Because right now Nick is kissing him back, soft and slow and so gentle it’s breathtaking.

_Shy thought and grave wide eyes and hands that wander as they list-_

Except, Nick’s hands _aren't_ wandering, just clenched in the back of Louis’s hoodie, and just...fuck it.

Fuck fear and shitty memories, just absolutely fuck it.

Fuck them and fuck _him_ too.

Louis lets go of Nick’s face, pulls away, and grabs him by the shoulders, taking in how pink his cheeks are, how red his lips are, the dazed set to his eyes.

"There is something I have to tell you," Louis says, his voice almost like gravel as he's studying Nick’s face, waiting for his eyes to refocus. "It’s very...important, and you're not going to like it, I don't think, but...it’s something you need to know."

"Okay," Nick says, his eyes getting even wider, and Louis is really about to tell him _everything_ when...

"But I don’t want to ruin our trip," he says, voice still a bit rough. "It’s already crap enough, and I just...don’t want to make it worse. But the minute we get back I'll tell you, alright?"

"Alright," Nick says, softly, and Louis thinks he feels a little tremor run through him. "As long as you're not actually breaking up with me, because I don't want to wait for that."

"Isn't that," Louis says, pulling Nick close again, so close their faces are only a few centimetres apart, and winding his fingers back into Nick’s hair. "It’s something...it’s something about me. A...thing that happened, and I just...think you should know about it."

"It was a bad thing, wasn't it?" Nick asks, and Louis nods.

"Very bad," he's willing to admit.

"Okay," Nick says, and Louis is expecting him to ask something else, prod a bit, but all he does is wrap his arms around Louis’s back and pull him tight. It makes Louis’s hands slide out of his hair, and Louis has to adjust himself so he's not awkwardly placed _actually_ straddling Nick’s legs, but he isn’t...he’s not...scared, and later he'll think it's because Nick let him stay upright, _held_ him upright, and didn't push, but at the moment, _in_ the moment, he’s just...warm, and it might be raining and entirely too dark outside for half four, but he somehow thinks he may just be...safe.

He’s sure it’s transient, that. Sure Nick’s going to hear his little story and go running, because why wouldn’t he? Sure that at any minute now the panic's going to come roaring back with a _surprise motherfucker_ , but none of that seems to matter right very now, and Louis is going to hang on to that feeling for as long as he can.

Gonna hang onto Nick for as long as he can too.

Definitely isn't a question about that.

~*~

"Where _are_ Harold and Liam?" Louis is asking later, curled into Nick’s side after they've finally come up for air.

Nick shrugs. "Don't know. Lounge, maybe."

"Were we supposed to be meeting them there?" Louis asks, picking a bit at the weave in Nick’s black and white jumper.

"Don't have to," Nick says, adjusting his grip on Louis’s shoulder. "Said we might see them at dinner, but nothing definite."

"We can go down if you want."

Not that Louis particularly wants to leave the bed, especially if Nick’s going to stay in it with him, but he isn’t going to make Nick stay either.

"S'alright," Nick says. "Might do later. Kinda nice staying in one place right now."

"Has been a lot of moving around hasn’t it?"

"Really has," Nick says, resting his chin on Louis’s head. "'S a bit more tiring than I thought it'd be."

"And we've not even left the South yet."

"We're gonna be zombies by the time we reach Durham."

"Probably," Louis says, absorbing himself more thoroughly in Nick’s jumper and trying to not think about how close to his mum’s they’re going to be eventually.

Not that he’s ashamed or doesn't want to see his mum - his mum’s his best friend and he misses her much more than he ever lets on - it’s just more like he'd be having to introduce Nick to her, and they've already gone far enough with the Joyce poems, he thinks.

Speaking of...

"Why'd you stop at number ten?" he asks, poking at Nick’s chest.

Nick’s fingers stop where they'd been tracing lazy circles on Louis’s shoulder. "Number ten?"

"The poems. You said you stopped after the tenth one, and I was wondering why."

"Oh," Nick says, his fingers moving again. "Think it was the last line. 'Sweetheart here I come' or summat. Got me to thinking and I decided that that’s where I'd stop."

"What'd it have you thinking about?"

Nick answers with a squeeze of Louis’s shoulder and a "someone."

"Cryptic bastard," Louis says, cheeks on fire even as he’s pinching Nick’s stomach, laughing when Nick squawks and tries batting Louis’s hand away.

'Well if you don’t know who it is by now then I feel very sorry for you," Nick returns, grabbing Louis’s hand at last and holding it so tightly that Louis can barely move his arm.

"Don't know Nicholas," Louis says, trying to twist out of Nick’s grip. His palms are beginning to sweat a bit, but _he is okay_. "Maybe I want you enlightening me."

"I think you just want a compliment," Nick says, working Louis’s hand open and pressing a sloppy kiss into Louis’s definitely damp palm before letting his hand drop back down to his lap.

"Think I do actually," Louis says, making a show of wiping his hand off on Nick’s jeans.

"Too bad you only get one a day."

"You _shit_ ," Louis says, worming his way out from under Nick’s arm and pushing him right over, not even stopping to think as he’s climbing on top of him and having a very decided seat on his stomach. "I'm worth at least two."

"Are not," Nick says, his eyes wide and cheeks as pink as Louis’s own, and alright, perhaps Louis _should_ have thought about it first, but he’s here now, and it probably can’t be helped.

“Am so,” he says, leaning over to poke Nick in the chest. “Think I’m worth about five really.”

“Can give you five,” Nick says, his face relaxing into a smile as he’s sliding his hands up Louis’s arms. Louis, for his part, is glad he’s still got his hoodie on, since his skin’s nothing but goose pimples. 

“Alright,” he says, putting a hand on each side of Nick’s (especially stupidly attractive at this angle) face and propping himself up. “No repeating yourself either. I’ll know.”

“Alright,” Nick echoes on a laugh. “So number one is...you’re fit.”

“Said that one already.”

“I did?”

Louis nods. “When you said you’d be luring your boyfriend around. You said he was crazy fit.”

“He is crazy fit,” Nick says, nodding himself. “Great hair.”

“Said that one too.”

Nick almost looks cross. “When’d I say that one?”

“This morning I think. When you were telling fibs about me being short.”

Nick’s face splits in a grin. “You _are_ short. Pocket-sized.”

“Might want to be careful with that one Nicholas, or I’ll be making you carry me around.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t mind carrying you around.”

"You'd get tired eventually."

"Not me," Nick says, puffing out his chest as best he can. "All rugged and manly, I am."

"Don't like rugged and manly."

"You don’t?"

Louis shakes his head. "If I did I'd be well into someone like Liam wouldn't I? Not a hipster in an ironic Dre shirt."

"Wasn’t _ironic_ ," Nick huffs out, reaching back and grabbing Louis’s wrists. "Said yourself he’s a legend."

"I did," Louis admits, because Dre _is_ a legend. "Still doesn't mean you weren't wearing it ironically."

"You know what I think?” Nick asks, swiping his thumbs across the undersides of Louis’s wrists, adding after Louis shakes his head, “I think you want my shirt.”

“Already got one of your shirts.”

“I know,” Nick says, eyes wide and amused. “My favourite one. Think you want my other favourite one too.”

“Or maybe I want all of them,” Louis says, because he does, really.

“You’d have me walking around half-naked then? Wherever I go, no shirt?”

Nick’s cheeks are so, so pink, and his grip’s just got tighter and a bit damper on Louis’s wrists.

Louis nods. “Might let you wear your coat if it’s especially cold out. Just the blue one though.”

“Good thing it’s my nice one then.”

“Say it is.”

"Do I get to have my trousers?" Nick asks, letting go of Louis’s wrists, which, good timing that, since his elbows were starting to hurt from being locked.

"No," Louis says, lowering himself down onto Nick’s chest, crossing his arms and resting his chin on them. "Just your pants."

He feels Nick laugh, and then Nick’s hand's on his back, warm and solid between his shoulder blades.

"That might be a felony, love."

"Only a felony if you're _actually_ naked and showing everyone."

"But I'd have my pants and my coat."

"And your socks."

"Generous of you."

"I am that," Louis says, turning his head so his cheek's now resting on his folded arms and shutting his eyes. 

They drift open when he hears Nick ask, "So what'll you be wearing?"

"Don't you know Nicholas," Louis says, poking at his chin. "I get to be fully clothed."

"That’s not fair," Nick says, with a bit of a laugh.

"Not to you maybe," Louis says, scratching at a patch of stubble on Nick’s jaw. "To the rest of us, yes."

"Still don't think it's fair."

"I don’t make the rules Nicholas. They are what they are."

" _Fine_ ," Nick says. "I'll just be out in my coat and my pants and my socks then."

"There’s a good lad," Louis says, patting his cheek and getting comfortable again, going back to picking at the weave in Nick’s jumper. It’s a bit hypnotic, running his thumbnail over the threads, and he’s not sure how long he’s been at it when he notices that Nick’s fallen asleep, his breathing slow and deep.

And Louis could roll off of him and let him have his nap, but he’s comfortable, and anyway, that'd involve moving Nick's hand from off his back, so he just stays right where he is.

~*~

He’s startled clear out of his skin sometime later by a pounding on the door that separates their room from Harry and Liam's.

"Oi!" he hears Liam shout. "You said until seven, and it’s just gone eight!"

"Let us in so we know you're not dead!"

And there’s Harry.

Louis springs off Nick, his heart still pounding as he’s stomping right over to the door and throwing it open.

"It wasn't locked," he says, pushing his fringe off his forehead with his shaking hands. "And how can I let you know I'm not dead if I'm _actually_ dead?"

Harry shrugs and jams a takeaway box in his hands as he’s squeezing past.

"Got you both a curry," he says, shoving a similar box in Nick’s hands before dropping down onto the bed.

"Got you tea too," Liam says almost apologetically, coming through with a takeaway cup in each hand. "Only, Harry decided I should do the knocking and I couldn't do it with my hands full."

"S'alright Liam," Louis says as he takes a cup off of him. "You can say you had your hands full of Harry. We won’t mind."

Liam turns bright,bright red, and Harry sits right up and gives Louis a death glare even more powerful than the one he'd got yesterday.

And, _ah ha_.

"So you _did_ have your hands full of Harry," he says, turning from Harry to Liam with his eyebrows raised.

"I, um,...yes?" Liam say, sneaking a glance at Harry, and oh no, this is too good.

Harry's almost purple and his nostrils are flaring just a bit.

"I tripped," he says, just about through his teeth. "And Liam kept me from falling."

"That does sound like you," Nick says, opening his box, which, _korma_ , and peering inside.

"Sounds very much like you, yes," Louis says, heading over to the table and hooking an ankle around a chair leg to pull it out. "Although," he adds, as he’s having a seat, "I don’t think you'd be so grouchy if it was...innocent."

He can see Liam bury his face in his hands, and Harry’s still making faces at him, but he deserves it, Louis thinks, and judging by the way Nick’s trying to stifle a laugh, he must think the same.

"We don't care you know," Louis says around a big bite of _korma_ , the best korma he’s had in a while really, and gesturing between Harry and Liam with his spoon. "Gonna give you no end of shit about it, mind, because you deserve that, but we really don't care, do we Nick?"

Nick shakes his head, swallowing himself and adding, "Don't care at all, but you deserve, like, a medal for taking so long."

"They _do_ deserve a medal don't they Nicholas?" Louis says. "Think we need to try finding them one before we leave Essex."

Nick's nodding, and Harry’s still purple whilst Liam is pale and gaping between him and Louis, and the road trip may still be crap, but this makes up for it just a bit.

"Sit _down_ Liam," he says, kicking out the opposite chair. "Stop hovering, and come over here and tell us all we don't want to know about the last couple of hours."

"Not telling _you_ anything," Liam says, as he’s taking a seat.

What about me then?" Nick asks. 

"Definitely not telling you," Liam says, twisting around to look at him.

"Heyyyy," Nick says, all offended like he hasn’t got the biggest mouth in Exeter. The biggest, _nicest_ mouth that Louis thinks he might have plans for soon as they can get Harry and Liam kicked out of the room again. "I can keep a secret."

"No you can't," Harry says, prodding at him, laughing when Nick starts to pout.

And Louis would tell him that he shouldn't, but his face...that's nice, even with his bottom lip jutting out.

"You told everyone about you and Louis on the radio," Liam puts in, which is true even though Louis has no idea why that seems to matter so much.

"I said he could," he says. "Said he could if he played me a song, and he did, so he's allowed to talk about it on the radio all he likes as long as he keeps playing me records."

Nick stops pouting and turns a lovely shade of pink as he’s grinning down into his curry, and Louis wonders if Harry and Liam, but especially Harry, even know about the arsehole who'd done him so badly so long ago.

"You said you liked the Echosmith one," he says, peeking at Louis over the top of his box, eyes shiny with something Louis can’t make out, and still, _holy shit eyelashes_.

"Correction Nicholas," he says, throwing a piece of naan at Harry, who's looking at Nick with an entirely too smug grin on his face. "I _loved_ the Echosmith one."

"Thought you might," Nick says, softly, busying himself with the rest of his dinner.

Which, Louis ought to be doing, since he's starving, _again_ , but it’s much more entertaining prodding at Liam with his foot and demanding that he tell him what he and Harry got up to on this lovely evening in Brentwood.

"Saw a film," Liam says, glancing at Harry and then back at Louis. "Something on pay-per-view. Don’t even remember what, really, and then we went out and got a curry and..."

"And we came back and the details aren't any of your business," Harry cuts in with, and...

"Didn’t want all the details Harold," Louis says, about to throw his other piece of naan at him but deciding he'd rather eat it instead, knowing full well that if he decided he did want details, which, there's one or two he'd like, he could get them out of either Harry or Liam easily. "Just want to make sure I'm not going to be walking in on any...surprises when we get back home.'

"But you might," Harry says with a smirk and a wink at Liam, who suddenly gets very interested in his hands. "Remember that thing we said we were gonna do?"

"That’s tomorrow," Liam says, looking right back up. "On account of how it's...well, tomorrow."

"What's tomorrow?" Louis asks, because forget what he'd told Liam earlier, he _does_ like being in on things. "What are you two doing and why’s it got to be tomorrow?"

"You'll see," Harry says, standing up and patting Louis’s cheek. "Meantime you might want to get to bed...early. Big day tomorrow."

"What’s tomorrow?" Louis asks again, watching as Liam gets out of his seat and follows Harry to the door, giving him a little wave before shutting it behind them.

"What’s tomorrow?" he asks for the third time, looking over at Nick, who's still tucking into his curry, going back to his own when Nick just shrugs.

Except, he can't let it go, not really, so he carries his curry over to the bed with him, has a seat, and picks up his mobile, thumbing through it until he gets to his calendar.

"Tomorrow," he's saying to himself, and it takes a very long moment before he realises.

"What’s tomorrow?" Nick asks, looking over Louis’s shoulder.

"The first," Louis says, setting down his mobile and turning his full attention to his food.

"The first?"

"Of April."

"You don’t think they're..."

Louis nods and gets an entirely too big spoonful of rice.

"Well you know we have to..."

Louis nods again, gets more rice.

"I mean, they can't just get away with it."

"No they can't," Louis says, getting up to retrieve his tea. "They won't."

"But what are we doing to them?"

"Don't know," Louis says, putting his half-empty takeaway box on the nightstand and curling into Nick’s side.

"Can't be anything much," Nick says, twirling his spoon around. "They'd have had to get it when they went out for the curry, and you know how Harry is after a while in the humidity.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, pausing to take a sip. “Bit like you.”

“I’m not that bad,” Nick says, wedging his spoon into his rice and setting his box to the side. “Think I did alright yesterday.”

“You did actually,” Louis says, resting his head on Nick’s arm. “Wasn’t lying when I said I wanted to get my hands all in it.”

There’s a very slight pause and then Nick’s saying “thanks” very softly.

“Anytime,” Louis says, just as lowly, and he’ll say it a million times, he thinks, if it’s going to make Nick sound so pleased.

It gets quiet after that, just the sound of the rain and the wind pushing at the windows, and Louis supposes they could be doing something other than staring at a blank television screen - plotting, for instance - but it’s just nice, being here with Nick and not panicking, not even feeling a _need_ to panic, that he’s not going to do anything to _disturb_ anything.

“I’m sure we’ll think of something,” Nick says eventually, sliding down enough that his head’s resting atop Louis’s own.

It’s the last thing Louis remembers before he falls asleep.


	4. Chapter 4

“Something” turns out to be Nick waking him up _in the middle of the fucking night_.

"Come along love," he's saying, smoothing strands of hair out of Louis’s eyes. "We have to get up early."

"Why've we gotta get up early?" Louis mumbles, even as he’s allowing Nick to guide him down onto his side.

"I have a plan" is all Nick says before he covers Louis with the duvet and clicks off the light.

~*~

The plan is genius in its simplicity.

And also in its execution, since that involves not much more than being jammed into a supply cupboard with Nick. It’s early, sure, too fucking early, but Nick’s letting Louis use him as a sort of upright pillow, and that more than makes up for it.

"Think they're up?" Louis asks, wrapping his arms around Nick’s waist and burying his face in his chest.

"Probably are by now," Nick says, his arms going around Louis’s shoulders. "About time for sunrise I think."

Louis hums and closes his eyes, swaying just a bit.

"Knowing them they’re out for a run," he says, turning his head to the side.

Nick huffs out a laugh. 

"A run in their pants."

"Better than going starkers."

"Say it is, although I still can't believe you're not used to it."

"The day I become used to Harry Styles and whatever he chooses to do with himself is the day I solve all the mysteries of the universe."

"Universe isn’t that mysterious."

It’s not, really, but Louis still can't help but say, "If I hear a certain number out of you, then I'm not talking to you for an entire _day_."

"You don’t like those books?"

"I did the first time, but then you hear it, like, a _million_ times, and then it’s proper annoying, making you wish you'd never heard of them."

"I'll be remembering that then."

Louis props his chin up on Nick’s chest and reaches up a hand to tweak his glasses - his _glasses_ \- before putting his arm back around Nick’s waist.

"See that you do," he says, unable to really help the grin spreading across his face either.

It’s just, low light and Nick in glasses holding him close and keeping him warm, and maybe he really isn't awake enough yet, but right now he’s so perfectly...content that he almost doesn’t know what to do with himself.

So he settles, if settling is even the proper word for it, for pulling Nick down into a kiss.

~*~

He finally decides to answer his mobile after it buzzes for the fifth time.

"Harold my most favourite mate," he says, cheerily over the sound of Nick actually giggling over his shoulder. "How are you this lovely morning?"

"Grand, thanks," Harry says, although he sounds like nothing of the sort. "How are you?"

"Oh I'm fucking peachy," Louis says, because he really is. "Having a good time here in Brentwood? Tried the breakfast? Heard it's good."

"I haven't," Harry says, and Louis thinks he hears Liam stammering something or other in the background. "Was going to go...with you...but...you're not here."

"What?" Louis asks, in mock surprise. "What on earth are you on about? I'm here same as you are."

"Well I'm stood in your room and you're not in it."

"Did you check under the bed?"

Louis can almost actually _see_ Harry rolling his eyes.

"You're not that small Lou."

"Sure I am," Louis says. "I could be under there right now, me and Nicholas both."

"I'd see Nick’s feet sticking out," Harry says, voice going a bit muffled like he’s actually checking under the bed to be sure. "And I'd hear you talking."

"No you wouldn’t," Louis says. "You've got terrible hearing."

"I do not," Harry says huffily.

"You do so. You've always got the volume up."

"I like listening for _nuance_."

"Fancy words this morning Harold."

Harry, inexplicably, laughs.

"'M not a newspaper Lou."

"I didn’t say you were?"

"I know, but it sounded like...nevermind. You gonna tell us where you are before you make Liam even more upset?"

"I'm not upset," he hears Liam say in the background, and that’s a lie if there ever was one. 

"You're right," Harry says. "You're heartbroken is what you are. Left all alone by your best friend."

Harry is such a shit.

Louis is sure to tell him so.

And because Harry is a _massive_ shit, Louis is sure to tell him that too.

Harry, the fucker, who is also a massive shit, just laughs.

"Seriously, where are you?" he says, once he's calmed down. "It’s been, like, three hours."

"Hasn’t been three hours."

It’s just, Louis would know if he’d been snogging someone for three hours.

His lips would be tired and chapped for one thing, and alright, they're dry and tender to the touch, but it’s not been three hours, surely.

"You're right," Harry says, and _see_? "Been two and a half."

Which, isn’t all that much different really.

"Two hours and forty-five minutes!" he hears Liam shout, and Louis is just going to be sorting himself out now, yes, getting his hair back in place, adjusting his clothes, and willing the blood in his face to please be elsewhere, thanks.

"Hasn’t been three hours," Nick echoes, and Louis nearly takes an elbow to the gut, but he hears rustling, and he figures that’s got to be Nick arranging himself too.

"You know Nicholas," he says, suddenly remembering, dropping his voice and waving his hand about in the dark until he catches Nick’s arm. "We never did give them a show did we?"

He thinks he sees Nick shake his head, and cradling his mobile to his chest, he stretches up on his toes and whispers in Nick's ear, 

"Want to?"

~*~

"I can't believe either of you," Liam says, as they’re walking toward the car. "You could have got us kicked out doing that."

"Oh _please_ Liam," Louis says, running his hands over his hair to make sure he’s got all the Silly String out. "We weren't the ones making a mess in their supply cupboard."

"But you could've made a mess if you'd kept at it."

"Still wouldn't have been as messy as yours and Harold’s little...idea."

Because they'd managed, he and Nick, to drop enough hints for Harry and Liam to find them, complete with...accompaniment that was very much a lot of things Louis can’t get his head around at the moment. And _when_ Harry and Liam had found them, they'd come armed with two cans of Silly String each.

"Well if you'd been in bed like you should have been, they'd have just had to wash the sheets."

"Which they would have done anyway," Harry puts in.

"You know Harold," Louis says, slinging an arm around his neck. "Never realised how perfect you and Liam are for each other. You both hate fun."

"And do naked yoga," Nick adds.

"It was only the once," Liam says, looking almost apologetic.

It’s enough to stop all of them.

"I was just guessing," Nick says, his eyes wide.

"When’d you two do naked yoga?" Louis asks, narrowing his eyes first at Liam and then at Harry.

Harry, who's frowning down at his feet and not answering no matter how often Louis prods him.

"This morning?" Liam says, looking more at Harry than anyone. "It didn't look nice enough to go for a run so we did a spot of yoga. Was a lot of fun."

"But why’d you have to do it naked?" Louis asks, letting go of Harry and stepping closer to Nick.

"We weren't _naked_ ," Harry says at last. "We had on our pants."

"Yeah, but it’s more fun if we tell them we were naked," Liam says with a smile, very lightly rubbing Harry’s back. 

"Well we thought you two went running in your pants, so this isn't much of a surprise is it Lou?" Nick asks, wrapping his arm around Louis’s hips.

"No it isn't," Louis says, almost absently. "So this is actually a thing now, you two?"

Liam turns bright red and nods at his feet. Harry wraps his arms around his waist and gives said feet a gentle little kick.

"About fucking time," Louis says, pulling Nick along with him to the Renault. “If I had to get home and have you two acting all weird again, I’d be smashing your faces together myself.”

“We weren’t acting weird,” Harry says, right behind him.

“Yeah you were,” Louis says, raising an eyebrow at him over his shoulder. "You're always weird, but this was, like, proper weird."

"That mean it's wearing a hat?" Liam asks, opening Harry’s door for him. "If it’s proper weird?"

"Sure Liam," Louis says as he's climbing into the backseat. "Monocle too."

"Like the peanut man."

"Yep," Louis says, pulling his door shut and kicking off his shoes. "Just like him."

"Can we stop for peanuts?" 

"Stop wherever you like really," Louis says, leaning back and closing his eyes. "You're the one driving."

"Harry's driving."

"So he is," Louis says, digging his knee into Harry’s seat, batting his hands when he turns around and tries pinching at him. "Sure your lovely boyfriend - _ow_ \- will get you lot and lots of...nuts."

"You're such a dick," Harry says, but he looks amused when Louis slots a glance at him, and then all Louis can do is shrug because it’s true.

And he's about to add in something along the lines of _you like dicks_ , but it somehow doesn’t feel right.

He settles for texting it instead.

~*~

He isn’t completely surprised when Harry grabs him by the wrist later and almost bodily marches him further down the walkway away from Nick and Liam.

A bit surprised, since Harry never does move very fast, and they're practically running, but he’s not _exceedingly_ surprised.

"Harold?" he asks, voice shaking on account of how heavy his steps are.

Harry doesn’t say anything, and it’s not until he's cast several glances over his shoulder that he slows their pace.

"You alright?"

Harry watches his shoes for a very long time until he finally looks over at Louis with a grin lighting his face and says, "I did it."

"Did what?"

Louis is about to repeat himself when Harry adds, "Kissed him."

"You did what?"

Looks like Louis is repeating himself after all.

"This morning," Harry says, squinting a bit even though there's not really that much sun today. "During yoga. I was...helping him get in...position, and I just...decided...I'd go for it."

"Did you really?"

Harry looks back behind them and then at Louis and nods.

“I figured...if it got...weird, we could just blame it on being on holiday, yeah?"

"Does Liam know that?"

"Yeah," Harry says, nodding his head again. "We discussed it before, well, you know."

"As long you're both alright with it I guess," Louis says, trying to look back at Liam himself but unable to really see much of him.

"I think so," Harry says, running a hand through his hair. "So it won't be weird...when we get back."

Louis laughs. "Better not be. Two weeks was enough."

"Sorry," Harry says, ducking his head just a little.

"S'alright," Louis says, linking their arms and steering them toward the water's edge. "Just don't go doing it again, yeah?"

"Yeah," Harry says, mostly on a breath, and Louis pats his hand. "Thanks for...letting me tell...you."

"Be upset if you didn’t tell me Harold."

"Yeah, but I don’t know..." Harry says, looking at the water.

"Don't know?"

"About...everyone else. About...mum."

 _Oh_.

"You don’t have to tell her right away, you know," Louis says, squeezing Harry’s arm. "It just started really, so if I were you I'd wait 'til I got settled in it before I went telling my mum."

"Don't like having secrets from her though."

Louis doesn’t like having secrets from his mum either, but "It’s necessary sometimes, yeah? Isn’t...bad, just what you have to do sometimes."

"I suppose," Harry says, but he doesn't look all that convinced.

"She isn't going to be bothered if you do tell her," Louis says, because apparently a different tactic is in order. "I've met your mum, remember? She thinks you're the best person on the planet."

Harry huffs out a laugh. "She does not."

"She does so," Louis says, poking him in the arm. "Told me so herself. Said you were the best guy she knew."

Harry grins down at his feet. "When’d she tell you that?"

"Christmas, first year."

He'd had a horrible time sleeping, homesick and wanting his mum so badly only he didn't want to ruin her holiday with the girls, and Anne had made him tea and sat with him until the sun came up. They hadn't talked much, and only about Harry when they had, but Louis hasn't ever got over that bit of kindness.

"And were you supposed to be telling me that?" Harry asks, prodding at Louis’s wrist.

Louis laughs. "Probably not. But Anne loves me, sure I'm sure it's alright."

"Probably," Harry says, and they're quiet after that, just watching the water, until he adds, "I'm going to tell her before Christmas. If things are still...good, I'll tell her then."

"Can't argue with that," Louis says, and he can't really.

"Will you go with me?"

Louis thinks if anyone should be going along, it's Liam, but he says instead, "If you need me to."

"I think...it'd be nice if I just...knew you were there."

"'Be wherever you need me to be Harold."

And he will.

He tightens his grip on Harry’s arm and tries not to think about how he might be needing _him_ in the future.

~*~

"I can't believe we walked the whole thing," Nick says, dropping down onto a bench and running his hands up and down his thighs.

"I can," Louis says, dropping down right beside him and doing the same.

"At least you've got the proper shoes for it," Nick returns, sticking his feet out and frowning at his boots. "Gonna have blisters from all that."

"But you have Louis," Harry says, having a seat on the other side of the picnic table. "He can, like, rub your feet for you."

Louis makes a face. "Not into touching feet that aren't my own, thanks."

"I helped my sister paint her toenails once," Liam puts in. "Was all I could do not to go sicking up everywhere."

Louis could be sick at the very idea. "You're a stronger man than I am Liam."

"I don’t even remember why she had me helping in the first place," Liam says, sounding a bit smushed. "But she couldn't do it for some reason, and I had to help out."

"No thanks," Nick says. "Love my sister, but I'm not touching her feet no matter what."

"Gems is more likely to go painting my toenails than having me do hers," Harry says, and having met Gemma, Louis suspects that that’s something that's happened at least once.

"How is your lovely sister?" he asks, tipping his head back.

"Same," Harry says. "Got a new job in...London, I think, so she's happy."

"What’s she doing in London?" Nick asks, half-turned in his seat.

Louis can see Harry shrug his shoulders. "Something with social media. Not really sure what."

"That’s a job, isn’t it?" Liam says. "Spend all day on Twitter or something and get paid for it."

"Except no one's going to pay you to be on Twitter, Li," Louis says, sitting up straight and turning around. "We've all seen what you get up to on _your_ Twitter."

"I'm not that bad."

"When you're sober maybe, and sometimes not even then."

"Is true I'm afraid," Harry says when Liam pouts at him.

"Your Twitter's a mess," Nick says, turned around himself and throwing a stray leaf at Harry.

"I'm...mysterious," Harry says, rather grandly, and if Louis didn’t actually know him, he'd almost have to agree.

"You have managed not to make sense for over a year now," he says, resting his chin on his hand.

Harry actually preens.

Louis grabs his leaf from him and starts shredding it, throwing the pieces of it at him one by one.

Harry laughs and makes a big show of ducking out of the way.

"C'mon Harold," Louis says, standing up and depositing a particularly large chunk of leaf right in Harry's hair. "It’s organic."

"Not quite my kind of organic Lou," Harry says, fishing the leaf out and taking shelter behind Liam, the fun-hater, which, it's fine. Louis is out of leaf anyway.

"Wasn’t aware there was more than one kind of organic," Louis says, slouching into Nick’s side, moving only enough so Nick can adjust his arm.

"But there is I think," Nick says, his hand on Louis’s hip and his thumb lightly rubbing at it. It’s done almost absently, since Nick’s got his other hand propping up his head and looking more into space than at Harry, which is why Louis thinks he's alright with it. "Like organic-organic, which is things that are _actually_ outside, and then, like, organic you find in a shop."

“He is right,” Harry says.

"You would know," Louis says, digging a fingernail into the wood grain of the picnic table in the interest of drawing out a splinter. He’s not sure what he's going to do with said splinter really - probably dump it in Harry’s hair too - but he’s begun to feel nauseous, and it gives him something to do, tearing at the wood.

He’s really got to stop skipping breakfast.

It'd been for a good reason - snogging Nick in a supply cupboard for hours, apparently - but the hike after, that probably wasn't such a good idea.

The others go quiet, enjoying the view or whatever, and he’s still digging when a drop of rain hits his nose.

"Oh come _on_ ," he says, glaring right up at the very leaden sky like that's going to do something.

The very leaden sky that’s just let loose with a very large amount of rain.

And Louis is _very_ tired of getting rained on.

"Looks like it did follow us from Salisbury," Nick says, and when Louis looks over at him, he’s got his head tilted back as well.

"Well I'm not sitting in it," Liam says, standing up and holding out a hand for Harry.

"Would melt your hairdo," Nick says, and Louis can't help but laugh. 

"You're one to talk," he says, poking him in the side.

"But you said it made me terribly attractive," Nick says, smiling and blinking at him through the raindrops that've gathered on his glasses. "Absolute dream with my hair plastered all over my face."

"Said I wanted to get my hands all in it," Louis returns. "That’s different."

"Isn't terribly different though," Nick says, his voice dropping and what Louis thinks is a smidge of uncertainty on his face.

And, "none of that," he says, sliding Nick’s wet hair off his forehead, his finger lingering on Nick’s eyebrow as he’s thinking _why are you even unsure?_

It's not like affection from Louis is some sort of... _prize_ , no matter how much he enjoys bestowing it on people whether they like it or not. He’s actually quite sure it's more a bother than anything, but at the same time, he thinks it keeps him from being forgotten about, and among his many little idiotic fears, that one's at least in the top five.

This really is the worst road trip ever.

God, does Louis ever want to go home.

Go home and drink until he passes out and forgets everything. 

He’s been trying not to do that, ever since he forgot about that one night so long ago now with Nick, but at the moment it's all he can do not to go running for the nearest off-licence. 

And yet, Nick’s got his eyes closed, and he just looks so damn _good_ all soaked through, and Louis is soaked through, so he pulls him into a hug, figuring if it worked in _Doctor Who_ , then it'd work here too.

_Never trust a hug. It’s just a way to hide your face._

Louis grabs onto Nick’s coat as hard as he can and buries _his_ face in Nick’s shoulder.

He almost cries out when Nick grabs him back just as tightly.

But he isn’t going to be crying, no matter how much it feels like he wants to, no matter how gently Nick’s asking if he’s alright.

Louis just shuts his eyes as hard as he can as he’s shaking his head.

He is the fucking _worst_ , and he’s so...tired of it he could fucking scream.

"I'm not alright," Nick says, holding him tighter. Louis’s heart is just about to sink right down to his shoes when he adds, "I'm very hungry, and I want noodles."

It’s so unexpected that it almost knocks Louis’s breath right out of him.

"What?" he manages to croak out.

"We didn't have breakfast, yeah?" Nick says, stopping to press a kiss into Louis’s hair. "On account of how we were...busy, and we just walked, like, all that way, and I think I really want some noodles."

Louis has to pull back and look at him, grabbing onto his shoulders and pinching at bits of his coat.

"You," he says, still breathless and croaky thanks to his seized-up lungs, "want...noodles."

Nick nods. "Could even be Pot Noodle. I don’t care, just want noodles, like, badly."

"That’s an odd thing to have a craving for," Louis says, grateful that the air seems to be seeping back in.

Nick shrugs. "Is what it is. The real question is, are you gonna get them for me or do I have to go getting them myself?"

"You want _me_ to go get your noodles?"

Nick nods and bites his lip. "I mean," he says, grabbing onto Louis's hands and holding them as he’s untangling himself from the picnic table, "you can get your own noodles too whilst you're at it. Never said you couldn't."

"What if I did get you Pot Noodle?" Louis asks, still holding Nick’s hand as they’re making their way over to the car park.

"Better get me two then," Nick says, swiping his thumb across Louis’s own. "Massive fan of the Pot Noodle, I am."

Right now, Louis will buy him all the damn Pot Noodle he can get his hands on.

~*~

He finds a Sainsbury's in Colchester, not terribly far from the A12, and literally grabs as much Pot Noodle as he can carry. Harry and Liam give him funny looks, but Nick’s face lights up when Louis drops the bag in his lap so Louis isn’t bothered at all.

He has to run back in to pick up the travel kettle he'd spotted for ten quid, and he’s got to run in the rain, but it’s cool on his face and Nick had looked so _happy_ , that no, he's not bothered at all.

~*~

"You can barely see the water from here."

Louis nods, because it's true, and yet...

"You're welcome to go stand out in the rain to see it better Liam."

"He could get us our picture whilst he’s at it," Nick puts in from the passenger seat.

"That’s right," Louis says, fishing out his mobile with one hand and twisting around to poke Liam in the knee with it. "He _could_."

"Could but I'm not," Liam says, and he’s pouting for so long that Louis manages to get a picture of it. "What about you Harold?" he adds, trying to prod at Harry as best he can. "You're still a bit damp."

"Only because you made me carry the bottled water earlier," Harry says. "Otherwise I'd be all dry and...toasty."

"I've got the heat on."

It’s mostly aimed at Louis’s feet, but he has got it on.

"You could...share it though."

"I am sharing it," Louis says. "With Nicholas."

"Is important to keep your boyfriend warm," Harry says, and Louis can't really argue with that one so he goes right back to his Pot Noodle, almost dropping it when a scarf lands right across his arms.

He looks at it and then at Nick, who, going back to his own Pot Noodle, shrugs and says, "Supposed to keep my boyfriend warm."

And Louis ordinarily _hates_ scarves, associates them with manky hipsters, but this one, black and green and so, so soft, this one he wears for the entire two-hour drive to Northampton.

~*~

The rain’s stopped by the time they reach Northampton, although the sky's still grey and threatening, and they don't do much more than make an odd sort of circle around Pitsford Water before they set about finding a place to stay the night.

They eventually end up at a place called The Bull's Head in Arthingworth, and Louis loves the look of it so much that he thinks he may just not leave for a very long time.

"The _colours_ Nicholas," he says, kicking off his shoes and setting to work peeling off his half-dry socks. 

"They are gorgeous aren't they?" Nick says, catching him by the elbow when he wobbles a bit too much. "Always did like yellow on the walls."

"I just like yellow," Louis says, holding onto Nick’s waist when he tries to step back. "S'why I liked that song you had me listening to on the way to Exmoor. Had my favourite colour in it."

Isn't the _only_ reason, but it’s the one he feels most comfortable telling Nick about.

"Glad for that," Nick says, his cheeks pink, and Louis likes that colour an awful lot too. "I thought it'd be good because it was, you know, calm."

"It was that too," Louis admits, breathlessly.

Breathless because he'd really like to get out of these trousers that are mostly dry but are starting to chafe just a bit, and he doesn’t want to let go of Nick either, because Nick’s got his face and he’s warm and he likes Louis for some reason, enough to go being his boyfriend, and, just, yeah...

Breathless.

"Thanks for, you know, doing all that," he says, catching a bit of Nick’s shirt and rubbing it between his fingers. "Being distracting, like. It helps."

"Am a pretty good distraction."

"You're the _best_ ," Louis says, letting go of Nick’s shirt, splaying his hand across Nick’s back, and pressing in with the tips of his fingers before pulling away. "And if you ever stop thinking that I'm going to be very cross with you."

"Be remembering that then," Nick says, wrapping his arms around his tiny, tiny waist. "Can't have you being cross with me."

"No you can't," Louis says, moving toward the bed and searching amongst his things for a top that’s not too wrinkled, stopping when he gets a glimpse of something so faded it’s almost pink.

Pink like his burning ears.

His fingers twitch.

And he wants to so badly, only he’s sure Harry'd say something, the smirking bastard, and it’s his, he knows it is, but it just...feels like...entirely too much.

Entirely too much like it'd scrape him raw somehow, the fabric tearing at his skin, and _it’s a goddamned shirt for fuck's sake wear it or don't._

And so, his cheeks on fire, he scoops up a pair of trousers and a grey jumper that he knows isn't his and takes off toward the en-suite, stopping only when he hears Nick laugh and say, "You really are going to have me going without a shirt, aren't you?"

Louis shakes his head to get his fringe out of his eyes, and turns around, clothes cradled to his chest, willing himself to breathe, to stop shaking so badly.

Because Nick looks the very opposite of upset, and he's already sifting through Louis’s things, pulling out one of Louis’s innumerable Adidas hoodies and holding it up.

"Which means," Nick says, giving it a little shake and then a harder one, "I've got no choice but to be stealing _your_ things."

"That’s going to be child-sized on you," Louis says, dizzy with relief as he’s backing into the en-suite. "And you're gonna stretch it out."

Nick shrugs and lays the hoodie down. "Maybe," he says, hands hovering right at his buttons. "But like I said, no choice."

"Was going to let you have your coat," Louis says, swallowing hard. 

"Shouldn't we save that for special occasions, the coat?"

Louis nods, very slowly, still staring at Nick’s hands.

"Is a nice coat," he manages eventually.

"See?" Nick says, and Louis can actually see his hands twitch before he turns right around and starts undoing his buttons. "S'why I need your shirts. Might get cold."

"Suppose you would," Louis says, his mouth gone dry, and he knows he’s gaping, but he just can't help it.

Because it’s his Nicholas with his glasses and his shirt almost undone, and Louis is afraid of many things, many things that look a lot like _this,_ and yet he thinks he'd have to be dead if he didn't...want.

And he does want, _so much_ , but first...

"Can I ask you something?"

Nick freezes.

"Or," Louis says, his heart stomping around in his throat and making his voice shake, "it's not so much I need to ask you something as I need you to promise me something."

Nick turns around very quickly at that, lips parted and his eyes wide, and Louis is going to try very hard not to stare at his chest, which, damn, but it’s nice and Louis _really_ wants to get a hand on it, but...

"There’s something I really don't like," he says, uncertain whether that's still his heart in his throat or rising bile. His skin’s starting to crawl and his bones feel almost hollow. "And I need you to promise," he adds, licking his dry lips, "that you won't ever do it."

Nick wraps his shirt around himself, which, pity, that, Louis was quite enjoying looking at him, and steps closer, so close Louis can almost feel his warmth.

Always warm, his Nicholas.

"Whatever it is," he says, and out of the corner of his eye Louis can see him tapping his thumb on his arm, "Promise I won't do it."

"You don’t even know what it is."

"But you’re going to tell me, aren't you?"

Louis nods, licks his lips again. "It’s just," he says, wishing now he'd never said anything. Makes him feel like that bright light's on him again, the way Nick’s looking at him, but it isn't like he can stop it now. Doesn't think Nick would be okay with that somehow. "It’s just, I really, really don't like it when someone’s trying to...tickle me."

Nick's eyes widen just a bit and then his face clears. "And you don't like being touched a lot."

"Not really, no," Louis says, his heart still hammering away, but at least it's back in his chest where it belongs.

"S'why you want me bringing drinks to Lemonfest," Nick says. "So you can deal with the crowds."

Louis can't do anything but nod.

"You don’t like it when you can't control how you're being touched."

Again, all Louis can do is nod and look down at his feet. Try to look at his feet, rather, since Nick’s stood so close that all Louis really sees is the tails of his shirt.

"It’s to do with that thing you have to tell me about, isn’t it?" Nick asks, his voice dropping. "That thing I need to know?"

"Yeah," Louis manages to gust out, lifting his head just enough that he’s now mostly looking at Nick’s crossed arms, watching as they drop down to Nick’s side and his hands clench into fists. "I just...wanted you to know," he says, his voice wobbling, "because you're really stupidly fit. I mean, _stupidly_ fit, Nicholas, and I want to...want to _soon_ , but I just wanted to let you know why it might...get weird."

Nick laughs and his hands come up, his fingers twitching again like he’s going to be pulling Louis into a hug but isn't sure about it, and fuck it but does Louis want a hug, so, still holding onto Nick’s clothes, he kind of crashes head-first into Nick’s chest, feeling such a wave of relief when Nick’s arms go around his back that it almost makes him weak in the knees.

"I'm glad you think I'm stupidly fit," Nick says, mostly into Louis’s hair. "And it isn't going to be weird. Long as I know enough about _why_ , it won’t be weird at all."

"You don’t know that."

"You don’t know that it'll be weird."

"It might."

"You don’t know that," Nick says again, squeezing him so tightly that he’s almost not able to breathe for an entirely different reason. "And I promise that if I ever do tickle you, it'll be an accident. I won't do it on purpose."

And that’s...good enough for now.

Louis breathes out a sigh of relief.

"And you'll tell me if I'm doing something you don't like?"

Louis nods.

"I mean, that's fair, isn’t it? Because I do like, well, things like this, but if it's going to be making you uncomfortable, I can stop."

"Better not ever stop this," Louis whispers, resting his cheek against Nick’s chest. "Be very upset with you."

"Definitely can’t have that," Nick says, resting his chin atop Louis’s head.

Louis shuts his eyes, and it gets nice and quiet for a very long time, right up until Louis asks, "Is there anything you don't like? Since we’re talking about it and all."

Nick starts, almost like out of a sleep, but soon his chin is back on Louis's head, rubbing just the very slightest bit, and he’s saying, "Not bothered by too much, really. Just the secrets thing you know about."

"Nothing else?"

"Not really, no. I'm kinda...weird myself, I guess. Like, sex isn’t very...important to me. I like it, but it’s not, like, something I've got to have a lot of. S'why I don’t really mind waiting around for whenever you're ready."

"D'you seriously mean that?" Louis says, jerking his head back to look Nick full in the face.

Nick bites his lip and nods.

"You're not just pretending so I'll feel better?"

A bit of a dark look passes across Nick's face, just a flash and then it's gone. "Don't like pretending, remember?"

"I remember."

One day, he has no idea when, but one day he will _find_ the arsehole from Nick’s college, and he will _destroy_ him.

But for now he’s more than content to let Nick pull him back close - chafing trousers be damned - content to shut his eyes, and just be held for as long as he can take.

"We probably should have gone over all this two weeks ago," Nick says, chin back in its proper place.

And he’s probably right, but...

"Didn’t want to go scaring you off."

Which, he might still be scared off when he knows all of it, knows _why_ Louis is such a fuck-up, but until then, Louis just might be allowing himself a small bit of hope.

Nick laughs. "Not much chance of that, love. Now that I know you think I'm stupidly hot, I'm gonna be around at all hours just to have you tell me so, again and again."

"What if I don’t though? What if you come around and I, I dunno, decide I'm only communicating through finger puppets or something?"

"Well I'd have to see that too," Nick says. "Not every day you get a fit lad waving his finger puppets at you."

"You're terrible," Louis says, pulling back and going right up on his toes to press a very quick kiss to Nick’s mouth. "Like, properly terrible."

"But you love it," Nick says, Louis does, he really, really does, so he just shrugs and nods.

It’s worth it, he thinks as he’s going back up on his toes, to see the way Nick’s face lights up at that, and it makes him feel so good to know that it's on account of _him_.

~*~

Harry, the bastard, doesn't _say_ anything when Louis and Nick join him and Liam later, which, alright, he can't with Louis’s hand over his mouth, but he still manages to look very smirky despite it.

The smirky bastard who just...

"Did you seriously just lick my hand?" Louis asks, staring at it in disbelief.

Harry smiles and shrugs. "Needed my mouth" is all he says before he takes Liam by the arm and starts leading him toward the bar.

Louis is still staring at his hand when Harry comes back and puts a wine glass in it.

"That better not be Merlot," he says, turning his glare on Harry.

"Don't know what it is really," Harry says, taking a sip from his own glass. "Red blend if I had to guess, though."

Better a red blend than evil, witchy Merlot.

Or treacherous Cab Sauv.

Although he guesses the Cab Sauv wasn't really so treacherous in the end, was it?

"Least it's a decent red blend," Nick says, moving his glass away from his face. "Got one in a box once that was the equivalent of drinking raspberry body spray."

Louis makes a face, glad _he_ can't remember that, and Harry just nods.

"It was very cheap," he says, glass back at his lips.

"It was very _horrible_ ," Nick says. "Ended up pouring half of it out."

"Never again," Harry says, clinking his and Nick’s glasses together.

"Why were you even trying to drink cheap wine?" Louis asks, nudging Nick with his elbow. "Thought posh bastards didn't need to worry about that sort of thing."

Nick nudges him right back in the arm and says, "Posh bastards don't stay posh bastards if they're spending all their money all the time."

"And it was supposed to be a...experience," Harry says. "Like...having too much...coffee and reading...the Beats."

"Got you beat there then," Louis says. "Did all that when I was sixteen."

"And now you're on a road trip like you wanted," Nick says, wrapping an arm around Louis’s shoulders. 

And Louis is, although it’s _the worst road trip in human history,_ but it’s technically a road trip.

Still, "Think road trips like that are better in places where it doesn't rain all the time."

"And in the summer," Nick adds, squeezing Louis’s shoulder. 

"Busy summer term though," Louis says, snaking an arm around Nick’s waist. "Got that module on culture and adaptation."

"It’s really alright, going now, you know," Harry says. "I mean, I've had a good time."

"Same here," Liam says, shooting a glance at Harry. "Be nice to do more, but this really hasn't been so bad."

It’s been the worst, Louis knows it has, but if everyone's going to pretend it hasn't, then, well, he supposes he can just be grateful they’re even doing that for the time being.

"Could go have a walk about," Louis says, gesturing with his wine glass at the windows. "Isn't too terribly nasty-looking out there."

"Could," Nick says, swiping his thumb across Louis’s shoulder. "Although I think I just want to go have a seat in the courtyard for a bit. Think I actually did get blisters from that walk in Essex."

"We can do that," Liam says, and if they're alright with that too, then Louis _really_ isn't going to be complaining.

"Let’s go then," he says, guiding Nick along with him to the door, making sure to go extra slow on account of his feet.

Making sure he knows it too.

Nick just laughs and gives him a pinch on his arm.

~*~

Two hours and several glasses of wine later and Louis is feeling warm enough and fuzzy enough to crawl right into Nick’s lap. Harry and Liam are...somewhere, but Louis isn’t particularly arsed about it at the moment, and anyway, _lap_.

"You're very warm, you know that?" he says, mouth right at Nick’s ear. He thinks he feels Nick shiver. "Very warm, and I'm always cold, so you have to share."

Nick laughs and pats at Louis’s hair. "Did give you a scarf."

"You did," Louis says, nodding into Nick’s neck. "Pity I left it in the room."

It is a pity.

Because it’s getting colder as the sun's setting and this lovely grey jumper, whilst it is very flattering on him if he does say so himself, has a very low neckline, and he’s starting to feel a chill on his collarbones.

"I'd get it for you," Nick says. "But I'm afraid I'm not going anywhere unless you do."

Louis makes a noise of protest and buries his face further in Nick's neck, pulling his sleeves down over his hands and looping his arms as best he can behind Nick’s back.

"Going nowhere," he mumbles, and that time he definitely felt a shiver.

Definitely felt Nick’s hands tighten in the fabric of his jumper.

So of course Louis has to move in closer, until they're flush against each other, and he’s so warm and fizzy and electric that he could almost shoot off into space.

Shoot off.

Ha.

"What’s so funny?" Nick asks, his grip relaxing enough that Louis is able to sit straight up and look him in the eye.

And he'd tell him, he would, only he can't stop giggling.

"What is it?" Nick asks as he’s searching Louis’s face. "Got something in my hair?"

 _Can put something in your hair_ , Louis thinks, and that only makes it worse.

"You're not going to tell me?"

Louis covers his mouth and shakes his head.

"I'd tell you," Nick says, obviously pouting, which, _way to make your face more attractive_ , and running a hand through his hair, or attempting to, since Louis catches it before he can.

"Mine," he's able to manage at last, holding Nick’s hand and dropping it down between them, wedging it so tightly that Nick’s not getting it back without an effort.

"Seems everything of mine is yours."

"What’s mine is mine and what's yours is mine."

"I guess," Nick says, and it's hard to make out in the fading light and through the fuzz in Louis’s head, but he doesn't seem all that pleased.

"It works both ways you know," Louis says, leaning in to get a better look at Nick’s face. "Give and take, that sort of thing. I take and then you take and I take and so on. Take so much that we don't know what actually belongs to whom anymore."

Nick's face clears. "So long as it's like that I suppose it's alright."

"Did you really think it'd be any other kind if way?"

Nick shrugs. "Not the best at this sometimes, if you didn’t notice. Get...worried I'm not...doing it right. That I...worry too much."

"You do worry an awful lot."

"You're one to talk."

"But I'm talking to you so that's alright isn't it?"

"Is better than talking to Harry, yeah."

Louis laughs and sets about playing with Nick’s hair. "Harold’s not so bad. He’s...a good one, our Harold."

"And our Liam."

"Him too."

"Any idea where they went?"

Louis shrugs. "Not got a clue. Not got a care."

"You might if they filch the Renault again."

Louis shrugs at that too and tilts forward back into Nick’s shoulder, murmuring, "You'd fetch me the MG."

"I would," Nick says, soft and right into Louis’s ear as his fingers slide into Louis’s hair and start to work, and it’s so nice that Louis shuts his eyes and lets himself enjoy it for once.

And as he’s being petted and soothed, he starts to think that this road trip might not be the actual worst at all.

It’s still lousy and far from perfect, but it’s not the worst either, not if it’s going to get him moments like this one.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So...this chapter turned out to be a bit of a lot. Minor character death, and there is also discussion of a situation in the past that could possibly be considered abusive.

The call, when it comes the next morning, isn’t a surprise all things considered.

Not given his luck.

He’s sat at breakfast with the others, his head a bit heavy and dry but otherwise alright when his mobile starts vibrating in his pocket.

Pulling it out, he sees that it’s his mum.

"Hi mum," he says, twisting away in his seat to hear her better. "Bit early innit?"

"Hi Lou," she says, so faint that Louis almost has to strain to catch what she’s saying. "Are you sitting down darling? There’s something...I...have to tell you."

Louis’s heart drops right down to his shoes.

"I am," he stammers out, even as he’s getting up out of his seat and walking away from the table.

"It’s your nan," his mum says, and Christ but her voice is wobbling like she's _crying_. "Nana Margaret. I'm so sorry Lou but she...she..."

His mum stops talking altogether, and Louis can hear her actually start to cry.

"What’s wrong with Nana Margaret?" he asks, heart thudding as he’s walking aimlessly, not at all shocked when he ends up outside, blinking in the sunlight.

His mum sniffles on the other end of the line and eventually she says, "She died. Last night. In her sleep. She's...she's gone."

Louis drops his mobile, watching open-mouthed as it lands right on top of his feet.

He can still hear his mum talking, her voice tinny and small, and he knows he needs to pick his mobile up, his fingers are even twitching, but he just...can't. 

"Lou?"

Louis’s fingers twitch again, and he clenches his hands into fists to hide it.

"Is everything alright?"

Louis shakes his head and clenches his hands even harder, his fingernails cutting into his palms.

He shuts his eyes and shakes his head again when Nick picks up his mobile and tries to hand it to him.

He keeps them shut when he hears Nick start talking to his mum.

 _God_ , Nick is talking to his mum, his nan is _dead_ , and Louis can't breathe.

Louis can’t breathe and his heart’s just been sliced in two.

He sits right down where he is, tugs his cuffs up over his hands, and buries his face in them.

Eventually Nick finishes discussing whatever it was he was discussing with Louis’s _mum_ , because he sits down right beside Louis, so close and so warm, and very gently puts a hand on Louis’s back, ghosting his thumb over Louis’s spine.

Louis gasps and almost chokes on it.

"She said she loves you," Nick says after a while. "She was very...insistent that I tell you that, so I said I'd tell you first off."

"And she said that the funeral," he continues when Louis can't do much more than snort out a watery sort of laugh, "is probably going to be on Monday once they get the details sorted, and that you don't have to go if you don’t want, but if you did it’s on most likely on Monday."

"Is that all she said?"

It comes out muffled on account of his face still being buried in his sleeves.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"What'd you tell her?" Louis asks, turning his head to face Nick, pressing his clenched fists together, and resting his cheek on them.

"Said we could be in Donny by lunch if you fancied going, but I'd talk it over with you first and see how you felt. Supposed to have you text her back later."

"We?"

"You're not going by yourself."

And before he can even ask Nick why he’s so sure Louis is even going, he hears the sound of footsteps and Harry saying his name.

That and "why are you going to Donny?"

Harry didn't say _home_ , and Louis is grateful for it.

"His nan died," Nick says, his thumb still going back and forth across Louis’s spine. "Last night."

There’s a hitch of breath that isn't his and a hand on his shoulder that's probably Harry’s judging by the size, followed by a "I'm so sorry" that definitely belongs to Harold.

"It was in her sleep," Louis says, his eyelids heavy and full as he’s still focused on Nick. "Mum said funeral is on...Monday."

"And I'm driving him up there if he decides to go," Nick says, focused on _him_ so sharply, and at any other time it'd make him squirm and his skin want to crawl, but right now it's alright, and it’s better when he reaches out a hand and Nick takes it.

"I am going," he says, because there's not a question of _that_. "Sorry lads."

"Don't be sorry," Harry says, his arm snaking across Louis’s collarbones, and Louis has to bite his lip to keep from crying out.

Not that it matters, really, since there's tears streaming down his face.

Of all the times.

"I'm sorry," he says, again, dashing his arm as best he can across his eyes, across his cheeks, to get the wet off. "But I'm going to need the Renault."

Harry's grip gets tighter, and so does Nick’s, and Liam's come around and is holding his other hand, and Louis’s eyes are burning and his breath's short, and _why can't he stop_?

It isn’t like it's a _surprise_. His Nana Margaret hasn’t been well for years.

"I'm sorry," he says again, punctuated by hiccups. "I'm so sorry."

"Hush," someone says, but he can’t tell who it is since he’s got his eyes shut tight. "Don't ever be sorry," the voice says again, or maybe it's a different one since it sounds more like Liam than the other one.

"I'm gonna take him up," Nick says, and it is definitely Nick. "But I'll drop you off at the train station first so you don't have to find your way there on your own.'

"Best get our things together then," Liam says, squeezing Louis’s hand again and, judging by the rustling, standing up. Harry squeezes Louis’s shoulders one more time, and then it’s just him and Nick.

"You don’t have to go with me," Louis says, wiping off his face with his sleeve. 

"You're not going by yourself," Nick says again, and Louis really hasn’t got the energy to argue, so he just lets Nick pull him up and guide him back inside.

~*~ 

Harry hugs him so tightly at the train station in Market Harborough that Louis thinks his head's gonna come clean off.

Liam rubs his back and makes him promise to text him as soon as they’re in, and then it’s just Louis and Nick left, watching as the train pulls out.

Louis would really give anything to be on it.

~*~

"So I was thinking," Nick says, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel.

"That’s dangerous."

It’s the first thing he’s said since they got on the road an hour ago, and it surprises even himself. 

But Nick gusts out a laugh, and when Louis looks over at him, he’s amused and playing with his hair.

" _Anyway_ ," Nick says, "was thinking if it's too crowded at your mum’s I'd just get a room somewhere or summat. That way it's not, like, weird."

"Can I stay in it with you?"

"You don’t want to stay at your mum’s?"

_Not especially._

It’s ridiculous, really, it's not even the same house, but for whatever reason, he just doesn't...want to.

"Don't think it's right, you staying by yourself."

And that’s true too.

Ridiculous as well, because, well, it is for reasons Louis _isn’t thinking about_ , but true.

"Your mum might get upset though. My mum would. Be going on about it for _years_ if I didn't stay at hers."

"Imagine it's different, though, with your mum."

"Not that different. Still your mum."

And there’s something very ugly twisting through him, trying to get out and snap, but Louis isn’t going to let it, no not him, so he clenches his hands into fists and says, slowly, "I just...don’t want you to stay by yourself, alright?"

He knows Nick’s staring at him as best he can, can _feel_ it, but he just... _can't_ right now.

Mercifully Nick doesn’t push, just says very quietly after a while, "Let's just worry about that when we get there, yeah?"

Louis breathes out a sigh of relief, disturbing a bit of his fringe that's settled in his eyes.

"Yeah," he says, his hands still clenched into fists. "Plenty of time yet."

~*~

He makes Nick stop the Renault about a street or two away from his mum’s house.

"Got to tell you something," he says, wiping his sweaty hands across his jeans. "It’s not that other thing, but it’s a bit...related to it."

"Alright."

"It’s just that...Nana Margaret. She...she wasn't actually my nan. My mum, she remarried when I was little, a guy named Mark, and Nana Margaret was his mum."

"Oh," Nick says, and when Louis looks over at him, he’s sort of blinking at the steering wheel, but he doesn't look all that bothered. "But you were close, right? I mean, it seems like you were."

"I loved Nana Margaret," Louis says, because he had. "Even after my mum and Mark split, she still made a point to keep in touch, and that, well, it was nice, really."

Made him feel like he hadn't been forgotten about, but out loud at least he's going with nice.

"My nan sent me socks every year," Nick says, reaching over and squeezing Louis’s hand. "Still does actually."

"Is that where the green and orange ones came from?" Louis asks, sniffling and wiping at his nose.

Nick laughs and nods. "Made them herself."

"Nana Margaret _hated_ knitting. Said it'd be a cold day before you saw her with a set of needles."

"Think I like Nana Margaret. Sounds like she was a tough old bird."

"She was," Louis says, scrubbing at his eyes with his sleeve. "Used to take me to all sorts of films my mum said I was too little for, buy me ice cream after and let it be my tea."

"Well I'm jealous," Nick says, rubbing his thumb across the back of Louis’s hand. "My nan always had those nasty strawberry sweets, you know, with the jam in, and I swear they were all from this, like, stockpile that she'd had from the 80s or summat. She never did seem to run out of those things."

"Did always hate those," Louis says, attempting a smile because Nick is trying, and he is so, so grateful for it. "So you know, my mum’s a hugger."

"She's a what?"

"Hugger," Louis says, pulling his hand out of Nick’s and patting it. "So you might want to be prepared."

Nick puffs out his cheeks and exhales. "I am meeting your mum, aren't I?"

Louis nods. "Sisters too. Gonna ask you a million questions, all four of them."

"I'm, um, looking forward to it," Nick says, and Louis can see him visibly swallow.

"It’s gonna be alright," he says, for both their sakes, because if he says it out loud then it’s true. "They'll love you I'm sure."

~*~

Louis’s mum hugs Nick so tightly that if Louis wasn't afraid for his head, then he'd probably be a bit jealous.

"Louis has told me so much about you," she says, releasing him at last. "I'm so sorry you had to meet us like this."

"S'alright," Nick says, putting a hand in his hair and stepping back closer to Louis. "Long as he said all good things."

"You should have heard him," his mum says, and Louis is expecting her to go into exactly everything he has said, but all she does is wink at him and pull him into another hug, pressing a kiss into his hair before letting him go.

"Gonna have Fizz bunk with Lots so you can your old room for the weekend," she says, as Louis is wrapping his arms around his waist and holding on tightly. "So you don't have to sleep on the sofa."

"We were, uh, going to get a room, me and Nick," Louis says, bunching up the fabric of his hoodie. "So it’s not so, you know, crowded."

"Don't be ridiculous," his mum says, "plenty of room for the both of you. You can stay in the same bed if that’s what you’re worried about."

"Isn't that," Louis says, although he's grateful she's said so. "Don't want to put Lots and Fizz out, and it’s always so tight, and I didn’t want to go making it worse."

"Well you can go upstairs and tell Lots and Fizz that, seeing as how I've already talked to them about it," his mum says, giving Louis a bit of a challenging look, and Louis still feels like a such a shit for letting them down about Blackpool that all he does is shrug down at his feet. "They're up in Lottie's room, the girls, all of them. They could do with a visit from their big brother."

"Alright," Louis says, and he knows it sounds dull and petulant, and he knows he could have fought harder, but his mum had looked so _tired_ , lines around her red-rimmed eyes, and he’s never wanted to make things worse for her, _no matter what happened_.

No matter how much he can’t stand the guilt.

~*~

He has to bodily pull Nick out of Lottie's room sometime later, promising them all, but especially Lottie, that they can bother Nick all they want after tea, and Nick, generous soul that he is, even agrees, waving as he’s being pulled through the door and bundled into Louis’s old room that's still got his Becks poster tacked to the ceiling.

"I think they liked me," Nick says, having a seat on the bed and looking around. "You think they liked me, right?"

"Were you just not there?" Louis asks, heading over over to the cupboard and throwing the door open, hoping he hasn't got to go rummaging in the loft for his books.

Might as well get Nick _his_ book if he’s going to have to be here, notes be damned.

"I was, but you know..." Nick says, trailing off, and when Louis looks back at him, he’s frowning at the floor and playing with his hair again.

"What do I know?" Louis asks, turning back to the open cupboard and digging around until he finds a heavily taped-up and faded yellow box covered in hastily scribbled quotes and odd doodles, pulling it out and wedging off the top.

"Sisters," Nick says, after a long pause, "how they are when you...bring your boyfriend home."

Louis can't help but huff out a laugh. "'Fraid I don’t," he says, glancing at Nick over his shoulder before going back to his digging, setting aside a stack of Dostoevsky _,_ "never brought anyone home until you."

Not that he'd been really planning on bringing Nick home at this point, but well...

"Never?"

Louis shakes his head.

"Guy before you," he says, uncovering _Trainspotting_ and putting it in a different pile, "wasn't very...interested in meeting my folks."

Not that Louis ever meant to bring Tris round, but he’s sure that if he’d mentioned it the answer would have been a resounding _no_.

"Declan," Nick says, clearing his throat, "he, uh, was the same way. Have no idea if his mum ever knew or not."

"That the arsehole from your college?"

Nick doesn’t say anything, but he nods when Louis looks back at him, and good, now Louis has a _name_.

"Yeah well fuck that guy," Louis says, unearthing _Chamber Music_ at last, tapping at the cover before he takes a deep breath and stands up to face Nick proper.

And he's just about to hand it over, when he thinks better of it, sidestepping over to his old desk and searching in it for a pen. He finds a sparkly pink one that’s got to belong to Fizz, and he’s about to go hunting for another one when he figures that Nick, the showy bastard, probably likes sparkly pink, so it'll do.

The problem then is, what to write.

Because Nick’s probably going to have this book long after Louis is out of his life, right up until the point where he bins it, so whatever Louis puts in there has to be good.

Only, he’s really got no idea.

He could put something in there about love, except the poems are already enough on their own, no matter what Nick says.

So in the end, feeling Nick’s eyes on his back _the entire time_ , he scratches out _your face is ridiculous and so is your hair xx_ , signing his name and shoving the book right into Nick’s hands.

"It was supposed to be a surprise, only you ruined it," he says, his face on fire and his fringe in his eyes. 

Nick doesn’t say anything for a very long time, and he doesn’t look at Louis either, but he opens the book eventually, right to the title page with Louis’s sparkly pink handwriting, and he laughs.

He laughs, and it lights up his face, and yes, ridiculous.

"My face isn’t ridiculous," he says, still amused, and Louis can breathe again, gusting out a sigh of relief and tugging at his hair.

"Have it on very good authority that it’s the most ridiculous face ever," he says, kicking at Nick’s foot before taking a seat beside him, knocking his shoulder into Nick’s and resting his chin on Nick’s arm.

"Very good authority?"

"The very _best_ ," Louis says, batting his eyelashes.

"Suppose I have to believe you then."

"Suppose you do," Louis says, turning his head so he can rest it on Nick’s arm and closing his eyes. "Thank you for coming with me," he adds, after a moment or two. "It’s better...since you're here."

Nick moves his arm and wraps it around Louis’s shoulders, pulling him close.

“‘M glad I could help,” he murmurs, resting his chin atop Louis’s head.

~*~

"These actually fit once," Louis says, gripping at the waistband of his trousers to keep them from falling down.

"Lost quite a bit of weight since you left home," his mum says, frowning down at Louis’s feet. "You don’t eat at that uni of yours?"

"Eat plenty," Louis says, wrapping his free arm about his waist and pinching at the fabric of his old blue button-up that's rather uncomfortable in the shoulders. He’s got no idea why his things fit funny, just that they do.

His mum hums something that he knows is disapproval, and he just... _can't_.

"I'm sorry," he squeaks out, brushing past her and into the corridor, nearly stumbling over Nick, who's sat on the floor just outside with Phoebe and a colouring book, and tearing up the stairs to his room.

He gets inside and slams the door, sinking down against it and burying his face in his hands.

 _I want to go home_ , he thinks, as his palms start to get damp, and he hates it, because he is _supposed_ to be home, this is it, this house, but it isn't, and he loves his sisters and his mum and even Mark, but he just, he can't.

"I want to go home," he says, and it sounds so...broken when it comes out that he’s glad no one’s around to hear it.

"I want to go home," he says again, his hands too damp, so he's forced to bury his face in his sleeves, pushing so hard at his eyes that he begins to see dark red spots.

There’s a knocking on the door then that scares the shit out of him, making him jump and his heart race. He wipes his eyes and his face as best he can, standing up on his wobbly legs and attempting the doorknob when it turns on its own.

He'd been expecting his mum, and his knees buckle when he sees that it’s not her at all, but his Nicholas.

"I told her you were upset about your nan and that you needed a minute," he says, sliding into the room and gently closing the door behind him. "But that's not it, is it?'

Louis shakes his head and grabs onto his clothes.

"Why don't you get changed and we'll go for a walk? Be nice to get out for a bit I think."

Louis thinks it'd be wonderful.

Especially if he hasn't got to come back.

"Yeah," he says, wiping at his eyes again. "Think I'd like that."

Nick smiles at him and cups his cheek, brushing his thumb across Louis’s cheekbone before dropping his hand and stepping back closer to the door.

"Just be telling your mum then," he says, putting his hand on the doorknob. "Let you get changed."

"Thank you," Louis breathes out, so grateful Nick’s willing to do that for him and pressing a kiss to his cheek.

~*~

"Not a bad neighbourhood to grow up in," Nick says, as they’re walking down the street, the sun beginning to dip and poke through the gaps between houses.

"The girls like it," Louis says with a shrug, "I didn’t really...grow up here like they did."

"Where did you grow up?"

Louis freezes, because this is it, isn’t it?

"I..." he says, his throat dry and his voice cracking, "it was...across...town."

And he’s waiting, his heart pounding, for the next question, the _when did you move over here?_

Only, it never comes.

Instead, Nick takes his hand and squeezes it, and Louis probably cuts off his blood supply squeezing it back.

"I grew up in Oldham," Nick says, "liked it well enough, but you know...was ready to get out after college."

"Can't imagine why."

Nick shakes his head and squeezes Louis’s hand again. "Me either," he says, pulling Louis closer to his side. "Meet such terrible people down South."

"People who steal your shirts and your gravy."

"That’s the worst, when they steal your gravy. Could forgive the shirt stealing, easy, but not the gravy."

"Is a serious crime."

"Quite, especially since I got him his own gravy."

"But you love him so it's alright."

It’s out before he can stop it, and he freezes right in the middle of the street, clapping a hand over his burning face.

Nick doesn’t even notice, and he barely stops, just long enough to sort of sigh and say, "Afraid I do, just a bit" before pulling Louis along again.

Louis, well, he could cry.

From sheer frustration or relief or god knows what, but he really could cry.

And he does, stupid, stupid tears leaking out of his eyes and running over his cheeks and he’s covering his face as best he can, but it’s no use, all these little gasps sneaking out between his fingers, and it’s not until they've reached the park behind the neighbourhood that Nick stops them again and pulls him into a hug.

"You really are having a rough time, aren't you?" he asks, rubbing Louis’s back, up and down his spine, pausing just long enough for Louis to nod before he starts up again. "We can leave, if you want. We don't have to stay. "

Louis shakes his head. "I _can't_ ," he says, his voice cracking. "I can't just show up and then _leave_ them."

"You can if it's too upsetting," Nick says, and Louis is about to protest with something or other when Nick ploughs on ahead with, "if it's not a place you want to stay, then you don't have to. Not if you don’t feel safe."

Louis freezes at the word _safe_.

"What do you mean, safe?" he croaks out, tightening his grip on the front of Nick’s shirt.

"Just, if you need to go somewhere else, somewhere that isn't...your mum’s, then we'll go find a place, me and you."

"How do you know it's anything to do with my mum?" 

"Isn't it?"

Louis lets go of Nick’s shirt and steps back to take a look at him.

"But how do you _know_ that?" he asks, and it’s almost accusatory.

"I don't..." Nick says, putting a hand in his hair. "But it’s not hard to figure out is it? I mean, you're not alright, being here, obviously, and it doesn't take much to see that whatever that bad thing that happened to you was, it happened here, or somewhere near here, and that’s why you're so out of sorts."

"How do you fucking _know_ that?" Louis asks, taking another step back.

"Because I don't like going to my mum’s either," Nick says, making like he’s about to step forward, only he stops at the last second. "Because a bad thing happened to me in Oldham and it’s hard going back sometimes, but I can manage okay, and I think that whatever happened to you must have been terrible if you _can't_."

"And you don't have to," Nick continues, before Louis can even say anything. "It’s alright to just _leave_."

"I _can't_ ," Louis says, shaking his head and clenching his hands into fists. "She's going to be so upset, and I can't do that to her again."

"Why?" Nick asks, and it’s so soft. "What did you do?"

"I..." Louis says, and his mouth's gone dry again and his heart’s pounding in his ears, and he’s really doing this now, isn’t he? "I...made him leave."

It almost slithers out, feeling like it puddles at his feet.

"Made who leave?"

"My...my dad. I made him leave."

"How did you make him leave?"

Louis can't breathe, can barely see.

"I didn’t...do it right."

There’s a sharp intake of breath that isn't his.

"Didn’t do what right?"

"I wasn't...good enough."

"Good enough at what?"

"I screamed until I passed out, and when I woke up...he was gone."

"Who was? Your dad?"

"Yeah," Louis says, breathlessly, a smile on his face that makes absolutely no sense. He isn’t _happy_. He’s hollow and far away. "He was...gone, and I was all alone until my mum got home."

"She wasn't there?"

Louis shakes his head. "She worked nights then.”

“Does she know?”

“She has no idea, and she never will.”

Nick sets his lips in a firm line, and Louis is expecting some nonsense about how he has to tell his mum, tell _someone_ , but all Nick does is shake his head and say, “I think we should go.”

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” Nick says, fumbling with his hair. “Maybe get that room I was talking about, yeah? Figure it out from there.”

"We can do that?"

"Of course we can," Nick says, getting his hand out of his hair and extending it to Louis. "Do whatever we want, really."

"I can go with you?" Louis asks, his fingers itching to take Nick’s hand, only he’s not sure. Because it feels like he's said too much, and his skin's crawling, little prickles up and down his back, and he almost thinks that if he _did_ take Nick’s hand, he’d be sick all over it.

"Well I'm not leaving you, that's for sure."

"You're not?"

Nick gives him a funny look. "Do you want me to?"

Louis shakes his head, and Nick almost visibly deflates, hand going into his hair again.

"I don't know how to make it...better," he says, looking at his feet and then at Louis. "But I want to, and I thought that...just going somewhere else might...help. I just want to help."

"What if I don’t want help?"

It’s a lie, of course. Louis doesn’t want anything so badly right now as he wants Nick sticking around by his side, but he just...needs to know.

"Then you don't," Nick says, with a shrug and a bit of a laugh. "You don’t, and we just...do whatever we want that you're alright with."

That...is almost too good to be true.

But...fuck it.

Louis will deal with that heartbreak when it comes, because right now Nick’s stood across from him still, and he’s willing to get Louis the fuck out of here without looking all judgy about it, so, really, just...fuck it.

"Did always want to stay at the Regent," he says, stepping closer to Nick and gently elbowing him in the side. "Looks well posh."

Nick's face splits in a grin, and he holds his hand out again.

This time Louis takes it.

~*~

“You’re going to have to answer that sometime."

"I know."

"It’s well past time for tea."

"I _know_."

"She's probably going to send a search party out soon."

"Will you be quiet?"

They're still in the park, just on the other side of it, and the sun's long gone down, leaving everything dark and approaching damp. His mobile's been ringing for _hours_ , and he’s not yet got up the nerve to answer it.

The call goes to voicemail, like the other dozen that'd come in before it, and then his screen goes out and Louis really can’t see anything.

"We can get the room, ring her from there."

And Louis knows they could, but "Will you _please_ be quiet?"

Nick does go quiet, and it makes Louis feel like shit, but he just really, really needs to be able to think.

His mobile rings again, and he throws it out into the dark as far as he can.

The call goes to voicemail, and then his mobile rings yet again. Nick gets up off the bench and retrieves it, and Louis watches as he unlocks it, eventually turning the sound off and sitting it face-down between them.

"There," he says. "At least we don't have to hear that going off. Getting to be a bit tortuous, all that chiming."

"Sorry," Louis mutters, burying his face in his hands and rubbing at his eyes.

"S'alright," Nick says, putting a hand on Louis’s back and moving it up and down his spine. Louis doesn’t jump for a change, which is nice, and eventually it gets to be so soothing that Louis just puts his head in Nick’s lap and shuts his eyes.

“We can’t get the room,” he says, eventually.

Nick’s fingers still in his hair, and then he clears his throat, asking, “Why not?”

“She’ll know something’s wrong,” Louis says, turning his face further into Nick’s leg. “And I...I can’t do that to her.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

 _Go home_ , Louis thinks. _Go back to Exeter so we can all pretend this trip never, ever happened, that it was just a very bad dream._

“We have to go back obviously. Back...to my mum’s.”

“Okay.”

Nick doesn’t sound very convinced.

Louis isn’t terribly sure himself, but…

“I’ll be alright ‘til Monday,” he says, because he _will_.

“Saturday,” Nick says, and _what_?

“Saturday?” Louis echoes, sitting straight up.

“Your mum said the funeral is on Saturday,” Nick says. “Said everything’d been arranged years ago, so they just had to make a couple of phone calls, and they’re able to do it on Saturday. So if you wanted to leave after, it's then. In the morning I think.”

“So we could leave that afternoon?”

“If you wanted yeah,” Nick says, taking Louis’s hand. “Up to you and what you want, but we could.”

“Okay,” Louis says, because it’s all he _can_ say, the very idea that he _hasn’t_ got to stick around entirely too big for him to wrap his mind around at the moment. “Just...okay.”

“Okay,” Nick repeats, letting Louis pull him up and along. “So we’re leaving Saturday then?”

“I don’t know,” Louis says, suddenly frantic to get back to the house, tugging at Nick’s hand and not slowing down until they’re under a streetlight and he can breathe a bit better. “I think so, but I don’t know.”

"Well that's alright," Nick says, wrapping his arm around Louis’s waist and keeping it there, all warm and solid, for the walk back to the house.

~*~

The house is dark when they come up to it, and once they’re inside, it doesn't really look like anyone's up.

Which is why when he rounds the corner into the kitchen and sees his mum standing at the counter with a cup of tea in front of her, he almost screams.

He doesn't though, and she doesn't say anything, just stares at him wide-eyed before coming over and wrapping him up in a hug, so tight.

Possibly the second tightest hug he’s ever had in his life from her.

"Mum," he says, and his voice is cracking, but she keeps holding on. "I'm...sorry."

"None of that," she says, low and right in his ear, which of course releases the floodgates, and all he can do is gasp and sob into her shoulder.

 _Fuck_ , he’s missed his mum.

He hates being here, still wants to leave more than anything, but god, it's his mum, and he’s missed her so, so much.

"I'm sorry,' he says again, and he doesn’t even know what he's apologising for, what out of the millions of things he’s done, but he can’t say anything else, and it almost feels like if he says it enough then it'll get through like he needs it to.

"Just give us a text next time okay?" she says, resting her chin on his shoulder and rubbing his back.

"Okay," Louis says, letting go, stepping back, sniffling, and wiping at his eyes. He takes the cup of tea when his mum hands it to him, and she gives him a smile and a kiss on his temple before telling him goodnight.

"Did you want any?" he asks Nick once he's had a sip. The tea's warm, and it makes his throat feel better. "Make you a cup."

"Sure," Nick says, and his hand's warm too on the small of Louis’s back.

"Isn't anything fancy," Louis says, taking another sip and stepping toward the kettle. "Just red label."

"Never had red label," Nick says, coming up behind him and taking his teacup off him so he can go rummaging for another one. "Ought to be an adventure."

Louis just laughs and shakes his head, getting out a blue teacup with pink flowers and polishing it with his sleeve. "Only you."

Nick shrugs, smiles at him, all nice and wide, and says, "Only me."

~*~

They've got the tea upstairs along with a plate of sandwiches that happened to be mysteriously lurking in the fridge, and they're eating whilst sat on the floor in Louis’s room with the lamp on when there's a very soft knock on the door. It slowly opens, and then Lottie's slipping inside, blinking in the lamplight and pulling on her hair.

"Alright, Lots?" he asks when she just keeps standing there, and she nods and finally comes over, having a seat next to him and sliding under his arm.

"You left,” she says, burying her face in his shoulder.

“I know,” he says, and it’s a bit choked on account of the lump in his throat. “Didn’t feel good. I’m sorry.”

“S’okay,” she says with a sniffle. “You came back.”

“I did,” he says, squeezing her shoulder. “Smelled sandwiches.”

Lottie laughs and it’s slightly watery. “Was Mum’s idea. Said we each had to make one so you’d both get two.”

“Which one’s yours?” Nick asks.

“The cheese and pickle,” Lottie says, wiping at her eyes. “Fizz did ham and cheese, and Daisy and Pheebs did the egg salad cream cos they had to match.”

“Is a very good cheese and pickle sandwich,” Nick says, and he almost chokes when Lottie says that it wasn’t for him.

And he sputters for about a minute until Lottie tells him she was only kidding, and Louis is laughing entirely too hard to be bothered about the look on Nick’s face.

“You’re just as bad as your brother,” Nick says, and that...is _probably_ a lie, but he will let it pass.

Besides, if it _is_ true, then…

“Learned from the best, didn’t she?” he says, squeezing Lottie’s shoulder again and rubbing her arm.

"Yeah," Lottie says. "From you and Mum."

"She is a legend, isn’t she?"

Lottie nods, tucking herself further into Louis’s side. "You made her upset."

Louis’s heart stops, and his insides turn to ice.

"I wasn't supposed to hear her," Lottie continues. "But I did. She was in the bathroom and she didn't come out for a long, long time, and when she did you could tell she'd been crying. I thought it was because of Nana Margaret but she said it wasn't."

"I..." Louis starts and then stops, because what really is he going to say? _I can't stand being here because it reminds me of too much? That I had to get out before I actually lost it?_

Fuck that.

"Your brother wasn't feeling well," Nick says, reaching over and squeezing Louis’s wrist. "You know how it is sometimes, yeah? Got to get out and have a walk about so you'll feel better. That’s all it was. He wasn't trying to make anyone upset or scared or anything."

"That’s what Mum said, that you were out for a walk," Lottie says. "Then she had us do the sandwiches because she said you'd be wanting something to eat when you got back, and she was right because you did."

"I did, yeah," Louis says, when he can breathe again. He even makes a show of polishing off his egg salad cream sandwich and snatching up the other one right from under Nick’s fingers. Nick pouts, but Lottie laughs, and she hugs him almost entirely too tightly before she goes back to her own room, the door clicking softly into place behind her.

~*~

"Thanks for that," Louis says, once they’re in bed, the lamp off and just the moonlight peeking in. "Earlier with Lots. It was...just, thanks."

"Of course," Nick says, reaching over and squeezing Louis’s shoulder. 

"You were right," he says, bringing his hand up to Nick’s arm and getting a light grip on it, swiping his thumb back and forth across the hair there. "About the walking. It...helped."

"Glad it did," Nick says, shuffling closer and moving a bit so his chin's resting atop Louis’s head.

Louis probably isn't ever going to get over how nice that feels. 

He lays there and listens as Nick’s breathing evens out, and once it's gone slow and deep, that's when he decides to start talking.

“It started as a tickle fight,” he says into the silence.

He hears a catch in Nick’s breathing.

But it's alright.

It’s just...alright.

He wants Nick to _know_ , and this, somehow, is the bravest he’s ever felt in talking about it.

Especially since he’s already told Nick a bit of it, and Nick’s still here.

Might still leave, but he hasn't yet.

“My dad and I,” he continues. “I was five, and Mum worked nights then like I said, so it was me and him, and you know how it is, messing about play-fighting with your dad, only he wouldn’t stop. Not even when I started begging him to. Because it wasn’t fun anymore and I didn’t like it and he wouldn’t stop, Nicholas, wouldn’t stop _touching_ me, wouldn’t get _off_ of me, and I screamed and I screamed because I thought that’d make him stop, but it didn’t, and and I didn’t _like_ it and I was so fucking scared that I just...eventually I passed out, and when I woke up he wasn’t there, wasn’t anywhere, and it was still dark out and all I could think was that I messed up. That if I’d just been...better, he wouldn’t have left like he did."

Nick flinches like he’s about to move his arm away, but Louis won't let him.

"And my mum...she was so upset when she got in that morning, and she kept asking me things, all these questions, and I couldn't tell her why he left, because I thought if she...if she knew how I'd messed up, then she'd leave too. I didn't want my mum to leave me."

Nick gets his arm free, and Louis’s heart stops. He’s thinking _this is it_ , _where it all ends_ when Nick's hand comes to rest on Louis’s shoulder, squeezing it gently and not pulling away.

 _Not_ pulling away.

Louis could sob.

And because he’s him, that's exactly what he does, starts sobbing, tears rolling down his cheeks and pooling in his ears. The cling film is back, and everything’s gone muddled and watery. He’s gasping for air, his head is pounding, and yet, he doesn't want to move.

He’s jostled a bit when Nick moves his other arm, sliding it under Louis’s neck and attempting some sort of hug, and _thank fuck_ , he thinks as he’s curling in on his side, burying his face in Nick’s chest as Nick’s arms meet at his back, one of his hands going into Louis’s hair.

"I'm so sorry," Nick says eventually, and it’s so hushed that Louis almost doesn’t hear. "That was wrong...what he did."

"I didn’t do it right," is all Louis can say, his voice squeaky and uneven.

"You were _five_ ," Nick says, holding him tighter. 

"He left because I did it wrong."

"He was wrong, Lou."

And Louis mostly knows that, because what kind of dick bag doesn’t stop touching someone when they scream, but there's a big enough bit of him that says that if he’d just _tried_ , maybe it would have been okay, maybe he _would_ have liked it, and then he wouldn't have been left all alone waiting for the sun to come up so it wouldn't be so dark anymore.

"Please don't go."

"I won't."

_You will._

They all do in the end.

Louis’s head is still pounding, and it hurts. Nick’s rubbing at his scalp, and that helps, but it just _hurts_ _so much._

"Bit of a saying, I think," Nick says, as Louis is trying to bury his face deeper in Nick’s chest somehow. "About how a bad penny's always turning up. Read it in a story once, a long while back, and it stuck because I'm like that. Or like a puppy. My friend Aimee says I'm a giant puppy that you feed once and then it stays."

Louis manages to let out a sound that's half relief and half a watery laugh. "Haven’t really fed you anything."

"You have," Nick says, rubbing Louis’s back with his other hand. "You don’t know it, but you have."

"How?"

Nick stiffens ever so slightly, and then he clears his throat and asks Louis if he’d like to hear a song.

Louis lets out a deep breath and nods.

"Be getting my mobile then," Nick says, giving Louis’s hair a bit of a squeeze and pulling away. Louis stays still and listens as he stumbles around in the dark, saying something that sounds a lot like "traitor shoes" before climbing back into bed with his mobile and his set of earbuds.

"You're probably going to think I'm a horrible, lame cheeseball for this," Nick says, his face lit up by the mobile screen between them and his brows furrowed as he’s concentrating on getting the song up. "But it’s how I felt...before, and I don’t so much anymore except for the last bit, and I just...still like it I guess, like how you like all songs that're true."

Louis swallows, his heart pounding for reasons he can’t understand, and takes an earbud from Nick when he offers it, nodding once he's got it in place and waiting for the song to begin.

It isn’t much, soft guitar and two voices singing, one of which sounds a lot like Marcus Mumford.

But it's the lyrics that get right to him.

Especially _I don’t want to be alone. I want to find a home and I want to share it with you._

And _every day I add another stone to the walls I built around you to keep you safe._

Hello, my old heart, indeed.

_How is it, being locked away? Well don't you worry. In there, you're safe. And it’s true that you'll never beat, but you'll never break._

Louis hasn't related so much to a song in his _life._

_Nothing lasts forever, and some things aren't meant to be._

_But you'll never find the answers, until you set your old heart free._

Louis slides his arms under Nick’s, pulls him close, and demands that he play it again.

And again.

And again.

Again and again and again until his ear hurts from having the earbud in for so long.

"I love it," he says, quietly, taking the earbud out for a spell. His head still hurts, but his heart’s slowed down, his _new_ heart he thinks, _hopes_ , and his breathing's alright. His hands are cold and shaking slightly, but Nick’s back is warm and solid where he’s got them pressed against it. "So that was you, then?"

Nick nods. "Yeah," he says, a little breathless. "Like I said, not so much anymore, just that last bit, which, you get it, right? How it's like you've put yourself out on this limb, and there’s not any going back? I don't want to go back, Lou, and I don’t think you do either. You don't _have_ to, not as far as I'm concerned, and if you want me to remind you every day, then I'll...I'll do that for you. I won't mind."

"You wouldn’t?"

Nick shakes his head, and Louis can just make out his face in the moonlight. 

"I'm the worst, didn't you know? And if someone's going to let me be the worst, which you do with the radio thing alone, really, then I'm like a bad penny and a puppy and glue and sellotape and jam sweets and all sorts of things rolled into one."

"A big, sloppy mess," Louis says, his smile stretching his cheeks, and Nick laughs.

"That’s me," he says proudly, and Louis could kiss him, only it doesn't feel quite right yet, so he demands another song instead.

"A nice one. Calm, like," he says, sticking the earbud back in as Nick’s picking his mobile back up.

"'Bright As Yellow' is calm," Nick says, thumbing at the screen.

It...really, really is.

"Sounds like a winner to me, then."

Nick gives him a smile and presses play.

~*~

They listen to "Bright As Yellow" and "The Graveyard Near the House" and "Sea Creatures," because Nick says he can't _not_ and Louis rather agrees, and a song called "Bloom" that he adores so much that he makes Nick play it just as endlessly as he had "Hello, My Old Heart."

It’s just such a lovely song, and he wants it to be the last thing he hears before he falls asleep.

_Oh you fill my head with pieces of a song I can't get out._

Louis tucks his head under Nick’s chin, tightening his grip on Nick’s waist, and shuts his eyes.

~*~

He wakes up the next morning with his nose buried right in Nick’s armpit.

It’s quite possibly the best wake-up he’s had all week.


	6. Chapter 6

Saturday dawns bright, just as bright as the day before.

Too bright in Louis’s opinion.

Because it'd been alright yesterday, the sun being out. He hadn't done much more than stick around the house, making endless cups of tea and trying to distract his mum from getting out the photo albums (he failed but Nick said he'd liked the pictures and it’d been easier to just believe him), before taking the girls to see Keith and Mark.

But today, today it just seems unkind, shining like that.

He glares at it through the window as he’s rolling out of bed, digging through his and Nick’s things for a pair of socks to put on his bare feet, eventually coming up with a neatly-folded green and orange pair and slipping them right on.

He's wearing Nick’s jumper later today, the black and white one because it'd seemed appropriate and Nick had insisted, saying his coat was plenty dark enough, so it only seems reasonable to take Nick's socks too.

He tucks his joggers into the socks and turns back to glance at Nick still curled up under the duvet. All he can see of him is his forehead, really, and a bit of his dark, dark hair against it, and it’s so much like that far-away day almost three weeks ago now that he can't help but think about how terribly different it all turned out.

Can't help but think about how far away that feels too, Wimbleball and Stonehenge and Crockham Hill and Brentwood, how they're all so distant that it feels like he's walking around with someone else's memories. Memories he isn’t entirely sure he wants or that he even knows what to do with.

And it’s not like he’s...better...for having told Nick his little story, but the panic's gone, almost like a switch has been flipped, turning that bit of his mind off that cares deeply about things and wants to hold onto them. It’s like being numb, if he had to pick a word, and he’s so exhausted from everything that's been in his head for the past week that it’s almost like he's getting a holiday from himself.

A very long-awaited holiday from himself.

So when Nick asks him in a mumble, as he's climbing back into bed and sliding his arms around Nick’s waist, if he’s okay, Louis says that he is.

He absolutely is.

~*~

He steals Nick’s toast at breakfast and then another pair of his socks later, pulling them on over the green and orange ones and having to undo the laces on his trainers a bit to get them to fit. The black and white jumper's much too big on him, so he sets it aside for another time, putting on Nick’s faded check shirt and the grey jumper instead, figuring that his Nana Margaret wouldn't be arsed with bothering about his clothes (although he can hear her saying as he’s getting his trousers on that he'll never have children if he keeps wearing them so tightly).

 _Not having children, Nana_ , he reminds her, wherever she is, sniffling and wiping at his eyes. 

And that’s when the idea comes to him, and he goes back rummaging amongst the boxes in the cupboard, moving aside the yellow one with his books and the green one with his old school things, feeling a bit of triumph when he spots a blue one covered in peeling stickers and pulling it out.

He’s still sat on the floor turning the figure over and over in his hands when there's a knock on the door and Nick comes in, taking a seat beside him and asking, "the White Ranger?"

"Yeah," Louis says, rubbing his thumb over Tommy's breastplate. "Liked him as the Green Ranger better, really, but that one's harder to find."

"Always liked the Red Ranger myself."

Louis makes a face. "He was boring."

He sees Nick shrug out of the corner of his eye. 

"Fit though."

"Suppose you're right about that," Louis says, sneaking a glance at him. The window's behind his head, and the sunlight hitting the ends of his hair makes it look like it's edged in gold. He reaches over and smoothes a bit of it that doesn't need smoothing, saying, "Still boring though."

"And anyway," he continues, looking back at the figure in his hands, "they did a showing of the film here once, some special Saturday thing, when I was about seven. My mum said I was too little to go, but Nana Margaret took me anyway, because she figured every boy needs to see a film like that when they're little like I was, and she was right, because it was the best thing ever. Mark said later that she'd done the same thing with him when the Transformers film came out, even though he was a bit older, and she'd been horrified whilst they were sat there watching it."

"Why was she horrified?"

"Have you ever seen the Transformers film? The animated one?”

He sees Nick shake his head.

"Optimus Prime and a whole bunch of the Autobots die, like, right at the beginning."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Louis says, and he can't help but smile at _that_ memory, how hard they'd all laughed as she was telling the story over the Christmas pudding, how she'd buried her face in her hands when Mark went on and on exaggerating how traumatised he'd been, how she'd swore she'd never take anyone to see a film again, only she'd been laughing as she said it.

"At least no one died in the Power Rangers film."

Louis huffs out a laugh. "Zordon did, but they brought him back."

"Oh that's right," Nick says, and when Louis looks over at him, he’s playing with his hair. "Been a while."

"I made Harry watch it with me a few weeks ago," Louis says eventually, since he isn’t going to let Nick go on looking like that, like he’s sad or something, smiling at him when he looks up. "Said he hadn't ever seen it, so I had to fix that right away."

"Say you did," Nick says, his hand dropping down into his lap. Louis takes it, running his thumb over the back of it, before squeezing it and letting go.

He’s just stood up to go put Tommy in his bag when he hears Nick ask, "Can I watch it with you sometime?"

Louis stops and turns back to look at him.

"It’s just...I haven't seen it in a while, like I said, " Nick says, his eyes a bit round. "Could do with the refresher, yeah?"

Louis keeps looking at him for a good long time, trying to read the look on his face before giving it up as a bad job and busying himself with getting their things sorted.

"If you want," he says, tucking Tommy securely into the pocket of someone's jeans and beginning to fold their clothes so they can leave right after. He lets Nick take over eventually, since he's a bit neater with his edges, and once they’ve got everything packed back away, he gets Nick to help him strip the bed, bundling the sheets into a ball and jamming them into the washing pile downstairs.

He doesn't go so far as to actually put their things in the Renault yet - he's not that heartless - but he spends a great deal of time trying to tame the flyaways in Daisy's hair as he’s telling her that she can come see _him_ anytime she likes.

"This summer?" she asks hopefully, eyes wide as she's tugging at the trim on her dress.

Louis laughs and tweaks a pleat. "Got a module this summer but...I'm sure we could get up to something in the evenings."

"Roller skating?"

"Sure, love," he says, unable to resist giving her a hug. "Nick can help and everything."

"He won't fall over?" Daisy asks, peering over Louis's shoulder, and Louis has to bite his lip to keep from laughing.

" _No_ ," he hears Nick say behind him, all affronted-like, "very good at roller skating."

"Since when?" Louis asks, turning around to look at him.

"Since _forever_ ," Nick says, but he doesn’t look anywhere near as cross as he sounds. 

"You never said," Louis says.

"You never asked," and alright that's fair.

"Good thing we know now, yeah?" Louis says, turning back to Daisy, standing up and taking her hand. 

"Yeah!" she shouts, pulling at Louis’s hand. "Let’s go tell Pheebs!"

He hears Nick laughing behind him as he's being pulled up the stairs, and he makes Daisy stop long enough for him to shout back over his shoulder, "Just you wait!"

~*~

The service is brief, not that he expected Nana Margaret to want anything else, and he’s able to beg out of the wake afterward on account of his having to drive back to Exeter. 

To her credit, his mum doesn’t say anything about how it's his choice, the driving back, just gives him a hug that takes his breath away and makes him promise to text her when he gets in.

"I will,” he says, and when she's not looking, he keys a reminder into his phone since he can’t really trust himself not to forget. He forgot to text Liam after all (didn't realise it either until he got a string of increasingly worried texts off him early yesterday morning) and whilst the numbness is quite nice still, he does wish that it wouldn't mess with _all_ of his memory so badly.

If only he could choose like in _Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind_. 

That’s an idea. He could be squeaky-clean.

He hugs his sisters too, telling the twins that of course he meant it when he said they'd go roller skating in the summer, that they could bring Lots and Fizz and Mum and everything and it’d be grand.

"Might hold you to that,” his mum says with a smile as he's letting go of Daisy, and it’s fine. 

It really is.

"Haven’t got to spoil them in ages,” he says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and kicking at a clump of dirt. "Probably about time.”

"Probably,” his mum says, jolting a bit when Daisy pelts into her, and Louis can't help but hug her one more time before he gets into the car. He waves at them through the glass as the Renault’s pulling away, and it’s not until Nick’s got them a street away that he thinks he might can start to breathe again.

He isn’t choked up like he thought he'd be, but his lungs are tight and his heart is racing. His mind is blank, terrifically blank, but his palms are damp, and he grinds them into his seat until they're dry enough for him to wedge under his thighs. 

He manages to distract himself by watching Doncaster roll by, and once they’re properly on the motorway, it's like nothing’s even happened to set him off. He isn’t even relieved that they're leaving, not really, and there’s a part of him that knows he is, but the part of him that actually _feels_ it seems to have checked right out.

But it's...okay.

Really, stunningly okay.

"There’s the aux jack,” he says, turning to Nick and watching him drive, “if you wanted to plug your mobile into it or something.”

“Could do with a bit of music,” Nick says, shooting him a glance and a smile, and so Louis doesn’t even hesitate, just goes digging in Nick’s coat pocket for his mobile and then in the console for the adapter, connecting the two of them and turning on Nick’s phone.

He can’t help but notice Nick’s wallpaper, the two of them and a crisp packet in Taunton, and he doesn’t know why it's so different seeing it there as opposed to on his own phone, but it’s just...that.

Different.

"Did you want to listen to anything in particular?” he asks, shrugging it off and plugging the adapter into the jack.

"Rihanna, I think,” Nick says, and Louis likes Rihanna, sure, so he goes digging in the dozens of her songs that Nick’s got on his mobile, settling on “Pon de Replay,” because if anything’s a Nick song, it’s that.

Judging by the way Nick shrieks and takes his hands _off the wheel_ to clap them together, Louis thinks he's got it right.

"Don't go getting us killed, Nicholas,” he says, dropping the phone into his lap and grabbing onto Nick’s hands to put them back. He isn’t scared, not at all, and he’s fairly sure that the fondness bubbling up from somewhere in his chest is apparent in his voice, given how flushed Nick’s face is when he looks back over.

"Sorry,” he says, almost hunching over the wheel. "I really like that one.”

“Is very you,” Louis says, reaching over and moving a wayward strand of hair off Nick’s forehead.

"Sometimes I like to dance to it in my pants.”

"Do you really?”

Louis thinks he'd quite like to see that.

"Would you?” Nick says, when Louis tells him so, slotting him a glance out of the corner of his eye that Louis knows he deserves.

"Yeah,” he says, looking out the window. "You’ve got nice legs.”

Nick barks out a laugh, and Louis can't help his own.

It’s just...nice, being unafraid for a change, and he isn’t sure if it's the numbness, still, or if it's because he just really doesn’t have a reason to be bothered anymore, but whatever it is, he's going to try to hold onto it for as long as he can.

~*~

It’s cloudy by the time they reach Durham. 

Not that Louis had had any idea that they were going to Durham, exactly, but Nick had mumbled something about a shortcut at some point, and Louis couldn't be arsed to argue with him.

So they're in Durham, clouds overhead and Derwent Reservoir stretched out in front of them, and it’s not lost on Louis that this was supposed to be the last stop on the worst road trip in human history.

But...it isn't like he’s thinking about that so much, everything still so far away that it might as well be a different country, and he’s sure he can figure out why Nick brought him here, doesn't take much really, and he loves it.

He really, really does.

He wraps his arm around Nick’s waist where they're sat watching a couple of boats bobbing about in the water, clutching the cup of cocoa Nick had got for him in his other hand, and he'd like to say thanks, but that feels entirely too sentimental, so he settles instead for hooking his thumb into the waistband of Nick’s jeans. Nick’s skin is warm, and Louis is so warm and calm that he might just stay here forever if he could.

“Think I’d like to rent a boat,” Nick says eventually, his thumb brushing at the fabric of Louis’s jumper where it’s bunched at his hips.

"D’you even know how to drive a boat?” Louis asks, taking a sip of his cocoa.

"Sure it’s not that difficult,” Nick says with a bit of a shrug, and Louis has no idea, so he shrugs himself and keeps working at his drink.

"Think you need to get the captain's hat,” Louis says after a while. “Do like a man in a fancy hat.”

"I can wear it with my coat and socks.”

"But not your trousers,” Louis says, nodding and pressing a bit further into Nick’s side. 

"Do I get my pants?” Nick asks. "Can't remember if I get my pants or not.”

Louis can't either, but, "Suppose you should just to be safe. Never know when there might be a breeze.”

“Is windy on the water.”

“It’s windy right now.”

"We can go sit in the car if you like.”

"Not very possibly romantic, that.”

He hears Nick cough.

"Didn’t know we were going for romantic.”

Louis looks up at him.

"Aren't we?”

Nick’s face is a bit pale, his eyes round and his lips slightly parted, and there should be a part of Louis that's dreading what he's about to say, only there isn't.

For whatever reason there just...isn't.

"Might as well admit it, Nicholas,” Louis says since Nick doesn’t look like he’s going to be talking, nudging him and then making himself comfortable once again in Nick’s side. "I already know you're a giant sap.”

Nick laughs and his arm goes around Louis’s shoulders, pulling him closer. "I don't know who you've been talking to,” he says, shifting and pressing his cheek into Louis’s hair, “but it’s all lies.”

“’M not a liar,” Louis says, his words slurred from where his face is half-buried in Nick’s armpit. "Very reliable, me.”

“Well you do think I'm stupidly hot,” Nick says, swiping his thumb across Louis’s arm, and Louis can't argue with that because it's true.

"Best be remembering it,” he says instead, finishing off his cocoa, setting the cup aside, and wrapping his other arm around Nick’s (nice and tiny) waist. Nick grabs onto his arm with his free hand and grips it, and they sit and watch the boats and the water in silence for a very long time.

~*~

They leave Durham when the sun comes out and the lake begins to fill with boats of all colours. It’s nice to look at, but it’s loud somehow, and Louis is almost itching to get moving again.

He gets his keys from Nick and tells him to pick something good to drive to, laughing when he hears the opening to “Pon de Replay.”

"Not that one, Nicholas,” he says, his hand hovering over the gearstick. "Something obnoxious that I'm going to hate.”

"I thought you wanted a good driving song,” Nick says, smiling and already scrolling on his mobile.

"It would be a good driving song,” Louis says. "Would mean I was with you.”

Nick’s thumbs pause, and his face gets all lovely and flushed as he’s saying, "And you call me a giant sap.”

“Well that's me, Nicholas, and if you don’t like it then you can get out of the car,” Louis returns, tapping his fingers on the wheel and waiting until Nick’s picked something to put the Renault in gear. He can tell that Nick’s looking at him, can't not, but he doesn’t regret what he’s said, and he doesn’t feel the need to defend it or explain it or whatever, so he keeps waiting, keeps tapping his fingers on the wheel, as Nick goes back to his phone and finally decides on something.

He can’t help but laugh.

"I told you to pick something I’d hate,” he says, putting the car in gear at last.

"I thought you would hate that one,” Nick says, making like he’s going to pause it, only Louis reaches over and grabs his mobile before he can.

"I love CHVRCHES,” Louis says, settling Nick’s mobile in his lap and turning up the volume. "And it’s a wicked cover of Bauhaus.”

"You like Bauhaus?”

Louis shrugs. "Gerard Way does, so I did too for a bit.”

"So you weren't a goth kid growing up?”

“ _No_ ,” Louis says, laughing and shaking his head. "Were you?”

Nick’s quiet so long that Louis has to sneak a glance at him.

"You were, weren’t you?”

“Not...as such,” Nick says, playing with his hair. "But there's, um, pictures of me, my friend Daisy has them, where I’ve got black lippy on and I'm wearing those horrible bondage trousers.”

"Please tell me you didn't have on a mesh top.”

"God, no,” Nick says, and Louis can see him making a face. "Think it was some band shirt or other. Definitely not mesh.”

"That’s a relief. Don't know if I’d want to be seen with a man in a mesh top.”

"Like you haven't ever made questionable fashion choices.”

And well…

“Grew my fringe out in Year Eleven,” he says. "Had it almost covering one eye and everything. Wanted to dye it black and put streaks in, but Mum wouldn't let me.”

“You’d look weird with black hair.”

"I _know_. Good thing she didn't let me do it.”

"Thought about dyeing mine pink once.”

"Why pink?”

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Nick shrug.

"I like pink.”

"Bright pink?”

“Is there any other pink?”

“Guess there isn't, not for you,” Louis says, shooting him a smile before turning his attention back to the road, eventually adding, "You should do it, the dyeing your hair. Pink would suit you, I think.”

"Should do it before I have to get a job and be all responsible.”

"Should, yeah.”

"Don't suppose you'd help me with it, would you?”

“D’you want me to?”

Louis sees Nick bite his lip and nod.

And that settles it.

"Pick the stuff up on the way home then,” he says, reaching over and taking Nick’s hand.

~*~

He doesn't exactly ignore the signage for Doncaster when they're passing back through, but he doesn’t really register it either. It’s just...letters, and they're not the ones he’s looking for, so he doesn't pay them any mind.

Not at all.

~*~

They stop at a Roadchef about an hour south of Doncaster, chiefly because Louis’s arse has long since gone numb and the sign had promised McDonald's. And whilst they’ve still got an impressive array of Pot Noodle stored away in the boot, Louis really could do with a cheeseburger.

He takes a picture of it before he eats it, sending it to Harry without a caption and figuring he’ll understand.

He's just got his food to his mouth when his mobile rings.

"I can't believe you're actually going to eat that.”

Louis takes a big bite and and chews it noisily.

"Gross,” Nick says, but Harry laughs down the phone.

"How are we even friends?” he asks.

"Because you love me,” Louis says, his mouth still full.

"You are right,” Harry says, and Louis can practically see him nodding his head. "Though God only knows why.”

"I'm charming and handsome, Harold,” Louis says, tucking his phone between his shoulder and his head when Nick gets all insistent about taking his hand.

"You are,” Harry says, all sincerity. "How do you...feel?”

 _Fan-fucking-tastic_ is what comes right to mind, because that _is_ how he feels, only he thinks Harry’d probably have a stroke or something if he actually said it.

So he settles for “I’m good, me,” because that is also true and much less likely to lead to questions he doesn’t want to answer.

"Are you still at your mum’s?”

“On the way back, actually,” Louis says, after another bite of his burger. "I think this place is called Tibshelf.”

"You didn’t want to stay?”

“In Tibshelf? No.”

"At your mum’s.”

_Barely wanted to go in the first place, didn't I?_

"Too crowded,” he says, setting his food down and starting to wrap it back up. It’s too salty all of a sudden, and there’s a lump in his throat that's the the only thing keeping him from screaming out _why’s everyone so fucking interested in me staying at my mum's?_

Because he loves Harry and he loves Nick, and he knows a question like that would upset them. He doesn't want them upset.

Harry doesn’t say anything for a very long time, and Louis doesn’t know if he’s grateful or unsettled for it, but he does know that his hand could do with a wash, so he lets go of Nick’s and heads right to the lavatory.

"So you'll be in late then,” Harry says at last, and Louis can barely hear him over the sound of the tap running.

"Elevenish, I think,” Louis says, scrubbing at his nails because they could probably use it too. "Perhaps.”

"I’ll wait up,” Harry says, and Louis has just got his mouth open to argue when he adds, “No use trying to talk me out of it either.”

Louis laughs. "You are horribly stubborn.”

"You're a terrible influence,” Harry says, and Louis knows he is, so he just shrugs, even though Harry can't see him. "I’ll tell Liam you're not dead.”

"He should know I’m not dead,” Louis says, turning off the tap and wiping his hands on his jeans. "He got a text off me yesterday.”

"He's still worried,” Harry says, and Louis’s hands freeze. "We all are. It’s hard...when it's your nan.”

"I'm fine, Harold, really,” Louis says, because he _is,_ and he will say it as often as he has to until someone believes him. “She had dementia and heart trouble at the end, and if she were here and in her right mind, she'd tell you to stop your worrying and go do something destructive.”

She would too. Louis can hear her now.

"Don't you mean constructive?”

“No, destructive” Louis says, joining Nick back at the table, where he’s already got their food bundled into a bag that he managed to get from somewhere, “Nana Margaret firmly believed in turning kids into absolute terrors.”

Harry laughs. “‘M not a kid though.”

“You would have been to her,” Louis says, heading back outside and having a look around. He spots a Smith’s that’s got its lights on and starts heading toward it. “She’d have probably pinched your cheeks.”

" _Yours too_ ,” he mouths at Nick when he hears his laugh.

"I wouldn't mind,” Harry says, and Louis is not at all surprised. 

Harry laughs when he tells him so.

“Going to find something to read, Harold,” he says, letting Nick get the door for him. "See you in a bit.”

"See you,” Harry says, and then he rings off.

Louis pockets his mobile and heads toward the magazines, Nick following close behind.

"Bored with me already?” Nick asks.

"Terribly,” Louis says, stepping back and wrapping his arm around Nick’s waist, squeezing at his hip, and studying the titles. Nick laughs and squeezes him back, and it’s nice, really, because he may have been afraid of things at one point, but they're dulled now still, and anyway, he’s never got over how _warm_ Nick makes him feel, fear or no.

He stands there and basks in it, eventually spotting a copy of _Q_ that will do and grabbing it. He tosses in a tube of lip balm he spots on his way to the till, something that looks like it tastes of cinnamon judging by the label, but Louis likes cinnamon and also the look on Nick’s face when he hands it over once they’re back inside the Renault.

"Do I need it, you think?” Nick asks, turning the tube over in his hands.

"You might,” Louis says, opening his magazine right to the middle and being met with a wall of words that somehow don’t make any sense. He shuts it and opens it again, only to be met with the same thing, words blurring together on the page, so he shakes his head and tosses the magazine away into the backseat.

"Didn’t want to read?” Nick says, uncapping the lip balm and applying it to his lips, using the mirror for guidance.

He’s just got the cap back on the tube when Louis leans over the console and kisses the lip balm right off of him. It makes something go tight in Louis’s chest, the taste of cinnamon and the feeling of Nick’s lips pressing back into his own, and all Louis can do is try to gasp for air and dive right back in.

Dive right back in until the feeling, whatever it is, subsides, and his chest loosens and his fingers don't feel so icy.

"So _that's_ why you got me lip balm,” Nick says, and Louis has to laugh. 

Especially when Nick picks the tube back up from where he’d dropped it in his lap and makes like he’s trying to get the cap off again.

"Isn't the entire reason, Nicholas,” Louis says, nipping at his lip before settling himself back in his seat. 

"So what’s the rest of the reason?” Nick asks, getting the Renault started and backing out.

"’S a secret,” Louis says, and Nick laughs, his smile wide. 

Louis can’t help but lean over and kiss him one more time.

~*~

There’s a collision that slows them down around Birmingham, a sea of red lights across the M42.

"Fascinating Saturday night,” Nick says, as they’re slowly creeping forward, and all Louis can do is nod in agreement.

"Think Harold left a Uno deck in here once,” he says. "Could see about finding it.”

Nick laughs. "Why would Harry have a Uno deck in the car?”

“To go with his travel Scrabble set obviously.”

"Didn’t know he had a travel Scrabble set.”

"He usually keeps it in the flat.”

"Beats the point of it being a travel set, doesn't it?”

“It is Harold we’re talking about.”

"It is.”

“He’s probably playing it with Liam right now.”

“In their pants.”

“They’ve got to have something to do after naked yoga.”

“I still can’t believe they actually did that.”

“I can. Probably going to be walking into something scandalous when I get in later.”

Nick laughs and pats Louis’s hand, his smile as wide and as nice to look at as it’d been back in Tibshelf.

Louis wouldn't mind kissing it off of him again.

"You can always stay at mine if you want,” Nick says, his thumb brushing across the back of Louis’s hand. "Anytime.”

"Is this your way of luring me round, Nicholas?” Louis asks, almost feeling a chill from the light touch and willing his hand not to shake.

“Might be,” Nick says, softly, looking over and giving him a smile, a softer one this time, but it’s still as nice and warm as all his other ones.

"Not very convincing, I don’t think,” Louis says, and his heart’s starting to pound a bit, but all he feels is a sort of peace. There’s nothing clamouring at him that it’s all going to go horribly wrong, that he’ll fuck it up like he always does, which, he knows intellectually that it's possible, but that well of panic that's been trailing him for as long as he can remember is behind a massive blank wall now and no matter how much he tries to access it, he just...can't.

It’s always there, the wall all cold and thick and grey, and Louis is glad for it, glad he gets to feel like someone else.

"So what do I have to do to convince you?” Nick asks, his voice going low.

"Breakfast,” Louis says, almost automatically. "Like a good breakfast. Eggy bread and such, none of that smoothie business.”

"In bed?”

“Not so particular as all that,” Louis says, because he isn't. "But unless it's cereal, I'm not terribly keen on fixing it myself.”

"So I just have to make you eggy bread, then? To get you to stick around?”

“That’s to get me to _come_ around. Sticking around is different.”

"What do I have to do then?”

Nick looks so serious, and Louis can't help but laugh.

It isn't like it's going to take much.

"Keep making me eggy bread,” he says, leaning over the console since traffic's come to a stop, combing his fingers through Nick’s hair. "Keep playing me songs on the radio and having your nice face, things like that.”

 _And your gentle heart_ , he thinks but doesn't say. _Keep having that one most of all._

Louis doesn’t even know if he needs that gentleness anymore, but he loves it, Nick’s gentle, good heart, isn’t afraid of loving it for once, and he doesn’t ever want anything to happen to make it go away.

To make it _stop_ being gentle and good and kind.

"Can do that,” Nick says, blinking slowly at him, his eyes closing when Louis leans in to kiss him.

~*~

The snarl eventually loosens when they reach the M5, most of the cars headed back toward Birmingham, and Louis thinks he'd be quite happy not to see that city again for a very long time, lovely memories of snogging Nick’s face off whilst sat in traffic be damned.

He thinks he’ll keep those, though, the memory of Nick’s lips against his own, how soft they’d been and how smooth, and the memory of how Nick’s breath had hitched when Louis pulled just a little bit at his hair.

Yes, Louis thinks he will try to keep those for a long time.

~*~

They stop again at a Welcome Break near Portishead, Nick saying that if he had to spend another minute stuck in the Renault he’d go mad and Louis quite ready to get out of it himself.

He makes Nick buy him chicken at the KFC and sends Liam pictures of his meal piece by piece.

"You're a terror,” Nick says, laughing when he sees the string of sad faces that Liam sends back.

"I am a terror, and you love me,” Louis says, pointing at him with a chip. The effect’s lessened somewhat by the gravy dripping off the end, but he thinks his point still stands.

"I do,” Nick says, sliding a hand across the table and squeezing Louis’s wrist. He looks almost nervous, and the “just a bit” he adds comes out entirely too quickly.

"More than a bit I think, Nicholas,” Louis says, popping the chip in his mouth and immediately picking up another one.

"Sorry,” Nick says, his cheeks pink. "Can't remember if it's just a bit or more than a bit.”

He looks down at the table and starts playing with his hair.

"Does it matter?”

Louis can't really remember either, and it barely feels pressing at this point. He loves Nick, in some fashion or degree or whatever, and his fucking brain is fucking cooperating with him about it for fucking once. It’s not like he can think all that deeply about it anyway, thanks to the wall, and he doesn’t see why he should even bother.

Nick looks up at him, and he’s pale under the lights.

"I think it matters,” he says, and his eyes go a bit dark. "I think it matters a lot.”

"Does it?” Louis asks, picking up a piece of chicken and studying it, debating how callous it’d be to pop it in his mouth. 

" _Yes_ ,” Nick says, his voice getting louder. "It _does_. It does a lot.”

"It _doesn't_ ,” Louis says, because it just doesn't, and he isn’t discussing this with a tired family sat not that far away from them, the little girl in her pink jacket entirely too interested in what they're saying. He pushes back from the table and stands up, and Nick somehow looks worse from this angle, almost like he's got circles under his eyes from not sleeping.

"Let’s go outside, yeah?” Louis says, lowering his voice so only Nick can hear, leaning over and drawing a lock of hair down so it curls over his forehead.

"Okay,” Nick says, almost in a whisper, and Louis helps him get their rubbish together, tipping it into a bin on the way out.

They don't say a word to each other until they reach the Renault, parked at the edge of the car park with a view of the motorway because they’d both fancied the walk. Louis takes a seat on the bonnet and pats the spot beside him as an invitation for Nick to sit down, and he does, slipping only once on his climb up.

"Careful there, Nicholas,” he says, grabbing Nick’s hand and steadying him. "Would like to get you back home in one piece.”

“Don’t fancy a patchwork boyfriend, do you?” Nick asks, and Louis laughs.

"Not especially,” he says, letting Nick get comfortable and taking his hand back. "Although I might make an exception if you can spare the face.”

"So shallow,” Nick says, looking down at their hands and then up at Louis.

"Like you aren't.”

"I admit it though.”

"I didn’t deny it.”

Nick clears his throat and looks over at the motorway. "Guess you didn't.”

"I didn’t,” Louis says studying the side of Nick’s face before looking at the motorway himself. They’re not so close that they're overwhelmed by the noise of traffic and not so far away that they can't see the lights from passing cars go zipping by. The car park is relatively empty on their end, and it’s nice.

Peaceful-like.

Louis lets himself take a minute to enjoy it.

But not too long, since he can feel Nick’s hand start to get damp in his own.

"It’s okay,” he says, rubbing their palms together.

Nick starts and squeezes Louis’s hand.

"And it doesn't matter,” he says, squeezing back and returning to his rubbing. "Whether it's just a bit or more than a bit. It just matters that we do I think.”

"Quite a bit of difference, though, between more than a bit and just a bit.”

"There is,” Louis says, drawing circles across Nick’s knuckles with his other hand. "But I don't think it matters in the end, yeah? I think it just matters that we _do_ , not what degree or who does it more and all that.”

"Suppose that's easier,” Nick says, looking down. "It’s just weird, I guess,” he adds, looking up at Louis, “that you're so okay with it today when you're not normally.”

 _That’s because I’m normally a fucking basket case_ , Louis thinks but doesn't dare say.

The wall is _his_ , dammit, and he’s keeping it in place as long as he can.

Besides, he has no idea if it's going to come tumbling down on its own anyhow, and he'd like to enjoy it whilst it's still around.

"It just…” Nick says, fumbling with his hair, “makes me think something’s changed, and I worry...that you're not alright.”

Louis can't help but laugh. "I am _fine_ , Nicholas. You’d know if I wasn't.”

"Would I?”

“I should hope so after this week.”

"You're sure?”

It isn’t hard to make out the uncertainty in Nick’s expression, even in the dim light.

Uncertainty that has no business being there.

"I’m very sure,” Louis says quietly. "Very sure that if I need it you’re going to distract the hell out of me.”

Nick huffs out a laugh. "What if you need it and I don’t know?”

Louis can't help but laugh himself. "Will you stop trying to be so perfect? You're going to give me a complex.”

"Maybe you should have a complex,” Nick says, and Louis can tell that he’s smiling.

"Maybe _you_ should,” he retorts.

He does remember thinking once upon a time that he wanted to be so good to Nick that he’d make his head spin. 

Maybe that's something he can actually work on now.

He thinks he’d like that a lot.

“So when does your show start up again?” he asks.

"Summer term, same as your module,” Nick says. "Why?”

“Because I’m thinking you haven't said my name on air yet,” Louis says, leaning in closer to Nick’s side. "I'm always So Pretty Boy, at least according to your friend Matt, and I’m thinking it's about time I got a name, don't you?”

“I thought you'd like the privacy.”

"But I'm hardly private, am I?”

Nick knows his secrets after all, and it didn't take Louis very long to spill them.

"And it isn't like people can't guess it's me. You basically tell them everything but my name.”

"Can say it first thing when I'm back if that’s what you really want,” Nick says, but there's still a hint of hesitation in his voice that Louis very much doesn’t like the sound of.

Which is why he gets right up on his knees, wasting no time flinging a leg across Nick’s lap and straddling him. He takes Nick’s face in his hands and says very clearly, “ I would like that a lot. And I would also like it if you'd believe me when I say I’m okay and when I say that you’d know if I wasn't because you’ve been amazing all week at taking care of me. I don’t have any reason to think that's going to change, and you shouldn't either.”

"But…”

“No buts, Nicholas,” Louis says, applying the slightest bit of pressure to his cheekbones, easing up and swiping his thumbs across them. "You are fantastic, and so am I, and you're just going to have to accept it like I did.”

Nick opens his mouth like he’s about to protest, but all that comes out is “I suppose if you insist” followed by a smile.

And that is so much better.

"I do insist,” Louis says, guiding Nick’s head forward. "Insist very much indeed,” he adds, right before their lips touch.

~*~

"She wasn't _angry_ , Nicholas,” Louis says, still laughing so hard he can barely breathe. "She just kindly _suggested_ that we take advantage of the lovely accommodations at the Days Inn.”

"She was angry,” Nick says, but he's still laughing too, even though they're far on the other side of Portbury, far away from the very nice lady and her “ahem.”

" _You're_ just angry because she startled us and I nearly fell off.”

"Could have hurt yourself.”

"Not with this bum. Got me a cushion.”

"Cushion for the…”

“Shut the fuck up right now.”

Nick fucking _guffaws_. "You started it.”

"And I’m ending it.”

"Alright _Mum_.”

"Fuck off.”

Nick laughs, softer this time. "Sorry. Still not sure what you're okay with.”

"What I’m okay with?”

“Yeah,” Nick says, and out of the corner of his eye Louis thinks he sees him fiddling with his hair. "With well, you know....”

"With what?” Louis asks when Nick breaks off.

"With...you know, sex-type stuff, innuendo and the like,” Nick says, and Louis is expecting his heart to drop, only it doesn't. "I mean, you seem alright, even though it's a bit weird to be honest, but I don’t want to push it too far, you know? In case you're not.”

Louis drums his thumbs on the wheel and waits for the panic, waits for the cotton wool and the cling film to show up, and it’s a relief when five minutes pass and they don't.

How wonderful his wall is.

If he were a songwriter, he’d probably write it a song.

Or perhaps an album.

"Maybe I just know you're not going to be a dick and that you’ll know when no means fuck no.”

"Do you?”

“You did stop just now.”

Nick doesn’t say anything, and he’s quiet for so long that Louis has to ask, "Am I wrong?”

“You’re not,” Nick says, and Louis feels his hand sliding atop Louis’s own, twining their fingers together when Louis flips his hand over.

And because they're on the motorway and not in town where he’d have to be changing gears constantly, Louis gets to hold onto Nick’s hand for a very long time.

~*~

His heart does a weird little thump when they finally get off the M5.

Because they're back, back in Exeter at last, and despite how much time he’d spent _wanting_ to be back here, now that he’s truly arrived it's...not as much as a relief as he thought it’d be.

It’s not a relief or a joy or a sadness. It just... _is_ , is what it is, he supposes, and he has to laugh.

That’d be a great tattoo.

 _It is what it is_.

He should get it right on his chest, so he could see it every time he looked down.

"What’s so funny?” Nick asks, and in the passing streetlights Louis can see that his mouth is set in a line.

Which isn't surprising really. 

Nick’s been grumpy since they had to stop holding hands.

"Nothing,” he says, reaching over and patting at him, aiming for his hand and getting his shoulder instead. "Except...how do you feel about tattoos?”

“Tattoos?”

“Yeah,” Louis says. "How would you feel if I got one?”

“You’re thinking of getting a tattoo?”

“Maybe,” Louis says, and he’s glad Nick’s at least stopped sounding grumpy. "Like a chest piece. Nothing huge, just a sentence in a nice font.”

"What’s the sentence?” Nick asks, and Louis somehow isn’t quite ready to tell him that yet.

So he says instead with a bit of a shrug, "Just a sentence. Nothing real complicated or long. Just a phrase I like.”

"Oh,” Nick says, and Louis sees him playing with his bottom lip. " That’s your thing, really.”

"But what would you think of it?”

“I’d think you should do it if you want,” Nick says, and Louis is really about to punch him when he hears, “but a chest piece like that would be good, I think, on you, long as they don’t botch it.”

"You can help me research places.”

"We could do that whilst you're dyeing my hair. Look up a place.”

"Or you could just ask your friend Michael.”

Nick laughs. "If I'm honest, that probably would have been the extent of the research.”

"His tattoos are wicked, though, so it’s not a bad thing, just asking him.”

"I can ring him when I get in if you like.”

“You could,” Louis says, around his heart that's relocated to his throat for some reason, "or you could ring him tomorrow after you've made me eggy bread.”

"I don’t have anything in,” Nick says, and there’s still a hint of a smile in his voice.

"Harold does. You know he does.”

"But I thought I was supposed to make it at mine,” Nick says, “to get you to come around.”

"You might need to practice first,” Louis says, slowing down as they’re approaching Nick’s street. "Can't expect to lure me around with substandard eggy bread.”

"Suppose I can't, no,” Nick says, fairly beaming at him from where they've coasted to a stop just beside a block of flats. He glances at them and then at Louis before indicating the road with a nod of his head.

Louis laughs, his heart back in his chest and having a bit of a flutter, and hits the accelerator, hard.

Nick laughs with him, and it rings out into the night.


End file.
